Afterwards
by Sakon76
Summary: [Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider Agito] When Godai Yuusuke returns to Japan, Kuuga belt still shattered, he finds that Ichijou Kaoru has returned to Nagano... and the Unknown are targeting those with special abilities.  Set mid Agito. GodaixIchijou pairing
1. Touchaku

Kamen Rider Kuuga: Afterwards  
chapter 1: _Touchaku_ - Arrival  
by K.Stonham  
released 9th September 2007

It was an early summer day, the sky blue, the air warm and the cicadas just beginning their chirping, when Ichijou Kaoru exited the Nagano police station and stopped short, his attention immediately arrested by the smiling figure that leaned back against a parked motorcycle, arms crossed, waiting for him. Slowly, he felt his own smile blossom in reply as tension melted away, a weight he hadn't even known he'd been carrying lifted off his shoulders, letting him breathe again. With quick steps he crossed to where the other man was standing.

"Godai," he said in greeting.

"Hello, Ichijou-san," Godai Yuusuke replied, and there was light in his eyes again, light that had almost been extinguished the last time Ichijou had seen him, battered and bruised and boarding an airplane to the Americas at New Tokyo Airport... "Do you have time to get some lunch?"

"Yeah," Ichijou replied with a quick nod, not even needing to check his watch.

"Great! I know this place..."

"In Tokyo?" Ichijou couldn't help asking.

Godai shook his head. "No. Here."

* * *

They ended up in a Chinese eatery that Ichijou hadn't known about, and true to Godai's word the food was good. "So where have you been the last five months?" he asked. He already knew a little bit; he kept in regular contract with Sawatari and Minori and they'd fed him details from Godai's letters to his sister, but it was different hearing it from the man himself.

"Just wandering. Mexico, mostly," Godai replied nonchalantly. "I climbed some of their pyramids, wandered the beaches. Ah, I got something for you." He set down the spring roll he'd been toying with and unzipped his battered black backpack, digging around in it. He finally produced a small cloth-wrapped bundle and held it out to Ichijou, who took it. "Souvenir of Mexico," he said proudly.

Curious, Ichijou unfolded the soft white handkerchief to reveal a thick silver bracelet set with turquoise and red and gold stones he didn't recognize. There was a stylized bird etched into its surface. It was exotic without being ostentatious. "Thank you," he said.

Godai was grinning. "I saw it and it somehow reminded me of you, Ichijou-san. The man who makes them taught me how to inset gems into silver like that."

"This being skill number...?" Ichijou inquired mildly.

"Mmm, if speaking Spanish is 2053," Godai mused, "then probably 2057?"

Ichijou suppressed a small laugh. "Thank you for the gift," he said again, and put it on his right wrist, where it was hidden neatly beneath his shirt sleeve. He looked out the restaurant's window, at Godai's bike where it was parked by his car. "New bike?" he asked.

Godai nodded. "Mine got wrecked going up against Number Three. I just got this one."

"You've been back a couple of days, then?" Ichijou asked. And, "You could have kept the BeatChaser. I don't think anyone would have minded." Other than a few penny-pinching bureaucrats, he mentally grumbled. Godai had certainly earned the bike.

"I got back yesterday," Godai said with a half shrug. "The BeatChaser wasn't mine, though, was it? And I didn't need it."

"Yeah, I guess so," Ichijou replied with a smile. What else should he expect from a man who took off for other countries and continents with nothing more than a backpack, a smile, and a few hundred yen in his pocket? Possessions were surely like water in a stream to Godai; to be held onto for a while, then let go.

He didn't try to hide his fear from himself, that Godai's smile alone someday might not be enough to keep him from getting hurt in one of those far-off countries where he had no friends and no family to help him, but... no, Godai was Kuuga, and any sort of fears that Ichijou might have on that score were foolish. He had to trust Godai, and keep doing his best himself. After all, Godai had been adventuring off in foreign lands long before Ichijou had ever met him, his father's apparent wanderlust blood flowing through his veins as well. "Working at the PorePore again?"

"Mm!" Godai gave a positive nod. "Nana-chan's got a leading role in a play so she can't be there as much so I'll be helping out more. Oyassan says that he's counting on me not to go running off all the time from now on."

This time Ichijou didn't try to stifle his laugh. "That shouldn't be a problem anymore, I'd think."

"Yeah." Godai didn't say anything for a long moment, then a gentle smile stole across his face. "I really am glad to have met you, Ichijou-san... and it's good to be back home."

* * *

Watching as Godai rounded a corner on his bike and disappeared behind a building, Ichijou smiled and already felt a little wistful. It was silly, he acknowledged to himself, getting into his car. For months he'd just wanted Godai to be well and happy again, whether he was in Japan or traveling the world. Slowly that wish had transmuted into something more subtle, into a sense of missing Godai's bright presence and wondering when he would be coming home. And now that he was in Japan, Ichijou was missing him because he was in Tokyo, only a few hundred kilometers away? "Don't be stupid," he told himself, keeping an eye on traffic. Godai had other friends to visit, people who would be equally happy to know he was back.

He hadn't been that impressed by the happy-go-lucky adventurer when they'd first met, Ichijou admitted to himself. Godai had seemed flighty and idiotic, probably the last person in the world Ichijou would have thought would be a good candidate to receive Kuuga's powers. But somehow Godai had been exactly the right person to wear the belt and its armor. The year they'd spent working together to defeat the Unknowns, the Grongi, had slowly stripped away everything he'd initially thought about Godai, leaving Ichijou with the understanding that he and Godai were exactly alike in far too many ways. Once Godai was committed to something, he saw it through to the bitterest end, no matter the cost to himself. Much like Ichijou.

In a strange way, receiving Tsubaki's call telling him that Godai had died was the worst moment of Ichijou's life, worse even than the call on his tenth birthday letting him know that his father wasn't going to be coming home ever again. Only Kuuga's belt, with its Amadam stone, had forced Godai's body into a state of suspended animation while it repaired the damage Number 26-A's poison had done. The overwhelming rush of relief Ichijou had felt when he'd seen Kuuga again, in his weakest white armor form, tackling 26-A away from the police-- that they hadn't lost Godai-- that he hadn't lost Godai--

Ichijou parked the car in the police lot and turned it off, placing both hands on the steering wheel as he frowned to himself, thinking.

Once Godai had put down his commitment, Ichijou knew, there had been no stopping him, no going back. There had been no one to whom Ichijou had ever felt closer, that shared sense of determination something he'd never found even among his comrades in the police force. And Godai's enthusiasm, his energy, what the French-American Jean might call his "joie de vivre"... it made things real, possible. Anything might happen, if you only worked hard enough at it.

Ichijou pulled out his wallet, fished out the name card Godai had first given him. "A man who chases dreams. A man of 1999 skills. Godai Yuusuke." He sighed and wondered if mastering the Kuuga armor had counted as Godai's 2000th skill or not, and put the card back away, telling himself not to think so much as he exited the car.

* * *

Leaning into the curve as the motorway swept away toward Tokyo, Yuusuke smiled at the freedom of the road ahead of him. It had felt really good, seeing Ichijou again. He'd gone to Nagano nearly the first thing, after buying his new bike, partly wanting to give the bike a road test, but also just to see Ichijou smile. He knew he'd worried the man with the way he'd been when he'd left after defeating Daguba, but he hadn't thought to get his address to send him letters, and he'd been drifting around Central America since, never staying in one place long enough to send a letter to Minori asking for it and receive a reply back. He'd ended up just shrugging the matter off for the most part, not sure what he'd say in a letter to Ichijou that his sister and Sakurako wouldn't pass on to him anyway from the letters Yuusuke wrote to Minori.

Yuusuke accelerated slightly, passing a car, the sun warm on his back and wind fresh in his face. The weight of his backpack was slightly decreased, but he still had a mask in it for Sakurako's collection, and after visiting her and Jean at the university, he had plans to stop in at Minori's preschool and see if the children wanted to learn how to make pinatas. Then there was Doctor Tsubaki, and Doctor Enokida and some of the Tokyo police force he wanted to say hi to, and he wanted to see Kanzaki-sensei as well...

But Ichijou had come first. Which somehow felt right.

He wondered if Ichijou was coming to Tokyo sometimes to visit everyone. If not, Yuusuke thought, maybe he could descend on him some night, grocery bags in hand, and cook Ichijou a Mexican-style meal, using some of the skills he'd learned there.

Maybe, he thought, smiling, and accelerated further toward the future, toward Tokyo.

* * *

Jean looked up from his terminal as the office door opened, admitting a smiling person he hadn't seen in months.

"Yo," Godai greeted them.

"Godai-kun!" Sakurako shot to her feet and out from behind her desk, animatedly hugging her friend. "You're back! How are you?"

"I'm fine," he assured her, grinning, as Jean made his way out from behind his own desk, offering a handshake to his friend. "Well, the both of you look good! What's been happening while I've been gone? Any interesting discoveries? Oh, which reminds me!" He held up a finger and shrugged off his backpack, setting it on the coffee table and unzipping it. He rummaged for an instant, then pulled out a package, handing it to Sakurako. "A present from Central America!"

Sakurako unwrapped the gift and held it up before herself. It was a mask for her collection, red with wisps of white horsehair around the edges and white scorpions painted on the cheeks. "Godai-kun, this is..." she said, then stopped. She smiled at him. "It's really interesting! Where did you get it?"

"There was this little village..." Godai started, his eyes bright and gestures animated. Jean listened to the story interestedly, glad to see his friend back to his usual bright self again.

* * *

Minori watched as the children crowded around her brother, him laughing and talking and giving piggyback rides indiscriminately for a few minutes before he looked back up at her with a smile and a small wave. "I'm back, Minori," he said.

"Welcome home, Onii-chan," she replied, glad to see his smile bright and his eyes tranquil again.


	2. Yumeutsutsu

Chapter 2: _Yumeutsutsu_ - Dream and Reality

Yuusuke scrubbed dishes, trying to remember being dead. He didn't remember much about it. In fact, he didn't remember it at all, either time it had happened. Just a vague blurred impression of pain, and Ichijou's voice shouting his name, but even that fading away... and, the first time, heat. Then nothing until he woke up again.

Doctor Tsubaki had told him that both times he'd flat-lined and needed to have a defibrillator used on him. The first time it hadn't been enough, and he'd been declared dead. He _had_ been dead, for several hours. Except somehow Kuuga's belt had held him in suspension while he healed, and he'd woken up only knowing that there was that Grongi out there somewhere and he _had_ to get to it before it hurt anyone else... and he'd gotten to it just in time, just before it would have gotten to Ichijou.

Every life was important, he knew that, but somehow the detective from Nagano had rocketed rapidly onto Yuusuke's short list of Very Important People. He thought it was maybe because Ichijou had trusted him despite thinking Yuusuke wasn't serious, was going to get himself killed. And somehow, in between being Kuuga and learning just what he could do with the armor and how far he could push himself, Yuusuke had figured out that knowing Ichijou had changed him. He'd decided he liked that change. He liked being serious about something. He liked that feeling of determination, that knowledge that he was actively making a difference in the world with his own two hands...

Knowing Ichijou had taken Yuusuke's general good-heartedness toward mankind and distilled it, purified it, boiled it down to the knowledge that there were things worth protecting, and that he would protect them no matter the cost to himself.

He wondered if Ichijou knew that, if he realized that Yuusuke had meant more than just the physical change into Kuuga when he'd asked Ichijou to watch his transformation.

He'd been willing to die, if that had been what it had taken, to defeat the Grongi. But more than that, he'd wanted to live afterwards. Yuusuke supposed it could have been seen as running away, the way he'd left after destroying Daguba, but he'd needed it. He'd needed time and space, quiet and the presence of people who didn't know him to ease the pain that fighting the Grongi had inflicted upon him. He'd needed to heal, to cast away the dark shadows of what he'd never wanted to become, never wanted to do. He'd needed to see them dissolve into light, and he'd needed to do it alone.

He wondered if Ichijou would understand that. The detective always seemed so serious about everything, so dedicated. So alone, like a house cat hiding its wounds for the sake of pride. Yuusuke had a bit of that himself. So surely not everything was work, work, work for Ichijou too, but finding out what wasn't was tricky, and Yuusuke had always had to come at it sideways. Still, he thought he had a pretty good idea of who Ichijou was and wasn't beneath it all.

Yuusuke wiped the dishes dry, stacking them neatly on the counter while Oyassan swept the floor, humming snatches of a pop song from thirty years ago. "Right, that's it," he said, stashing the dishes in their cupboard and pulling the apron over his head. "Oyassan, I'm done. Is it okay if I head out?"

"Sure, sure," the older man said with a genial flapping of his hand. "Just don't run into any more of those Brongi."

"Grongi," Yuusuke immediately corrected, hanging the apron up. "And I don't think I will."

"What's the rush?" Oyassan asked, watching Yuusuke.

Yuusuke flashed a grin. "I think I've got a date." And headed for the door.

"Oh, well, I hope she's a nice girl," Oyassan said as he reached it.

"It's with Ichijou-san," Yuusuke replied over his shoulder.

There was silence for a second as the door swung shut behind him, but Yuusuke heard, as it closed, "Well, I suppose the detective's a nice man."

* * *

Ichijou blinked as he opened his door, seeing Godai Yuusuke standing there, white plastic grocery bags in either hand. "Good evening, Ichijou-san," Godai said. "Can I come in?" 

"Please," Ichijou replied, stepping back as Godai came in and took off his shoes, momentarily setting his bags on the floor. "I thought we were having a dinner out?"

"But cooking's so much more fun!" Godai enthused, standing back up. "Besides, I haven't found any good Mexican places yet, and I learned this recipe I think you'll like. Not that it was easy finding masa in any of the supermarkets, but..." he rambled on.

Ichijou had to smile. "All right," he acquiesced, reaching for one of the bags and taking it from Godai. "What are we making?" And as Godai gave him a list of equipment he found himself searching cupboards for pots and pans, knives and cutting boards, and finally...

"Do you have a vase, Ichijou-san?"

"A vase?" Ichijou asked, turning where he knelt to see red roses in Godai's hands. He blinked, something twisting up inside him. "Godai..."

"I passed a florist's along the way, and I thought your apartment might need something to brighten it up," Godai explained. "Is something wrong, Ichijou-san?"

Ichijou stood slowly and took two steps, reaching past where Godai stood, pulling a tall vase out of the back of an overhead cupboard. He'd gotten it when he'd been shot and in the hospital once, he recalled; the entire department had sent him a floral arrangement with a get-well card. Even after the flowers had wilted he'd never thrown the vase away in case he might someday have a need for it. "It's nothing. Just... Number B-1."

"Ah, the woman with the rose tattoo?" Godai asked.

Ichijou nodded. "She incapacitated me a few times with red rose petals." He busied himself filling the vase with water from the tap.

"Do you have sugar?" Godai asked, turning away. "They'll last longer with some sugar in the water. Ah, here it is." He shooed Ichijou away, to the other side of the counter, expertly stirring a few spoonfuls of sugar in, stripping the bottommost leaves from the roses, cutting their stems underwater and plunging them into the vase, arranging them with unconscious skill. "But Ichijou-san... there've been red roses around long before you met her, right?"

"I know it's silly," Ichijou confessed. "Still, they remind me of her." Of how she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Of how he'd wished she was human. Of how he'd wanted her not to be evil.

"Mmm, I guess that's something you can't help," Godai admitted, adjusting one last stem. He lifted the vase onto the counter between them. "Still, there are other meanings to red roses too, aren't there?" he asked. "In Europe and lots of places, they say red roses mean love."

Ichijou's breath caught, the tips of his fingers just barely touching Godai's where he was taking the vase from the other man. "Godai..."

"Isn't that right, Ichijou-san?" Godai asked with a smile, and Ichijou honestly didn't know if Godai had meant what he'd implied, if he was even conscious of his flirting...

He pulled himself back under control. "Yeah," he replied, nodding. "I suppose so." He took the vase of flowers and turned away, setting it on the dining table, adjusting it for a second before turning back to look at Godai where he bustled around Ichijou's kitchen.

In some ways, though, B-1 wasn't the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. That was someone else, the rose's beauty disappearing in the face of the sun in its clear sky...

* * *

Godai's cooking was, as to be expected, excellent, and Ichijou surprised himself by deciding he liked Mexican food. He'd always heard that the palate of Mexican cuisine was too alien to Japanese tastes and so automatically had assumed he wouldn't care for it. Once again Godai had managed to surprise him and broaden his world. 

"And so on the Day of the Dead, they cook a feast to be shared with their ancestors' spirits and dress up like skeletons and play music and sing to keep their spirits happy in the afterlife," Godai explained, toying with the bottle of beer held between his two hands.

"Not so different from our Obon, then," Ichijou said consideringly.

Godai shook his head. "Not so different at all. I kind of wish I'd stayed to see it."

And participate, no doubt, cooking up mole and sopapillas with ease, Ichijou thought. "Why didn't you?"

Godai shrugged a little. "It felt like it was time for me to come home."

"I suppose you could always go back, if you want to see it," Ichijou mused. Part of him couldn't believe he was actually suggesting that Godai leave again already. The rest of him was comfortable, talking in his home with a good friend, the remains of their meal scattered between them, both of their shirt sleeves rolled up from where they'd worked together to make the food, Godai teaching him how to stretch the dough thin to make tortillas.

"Maybe," Godai said. He smiled. "You could always come with me, Ichijou-san. There's a whole world out there to explore."

"Me?" Ichijou had to laugh at the image, shaking his head. "No. Thanks, but I don't think I could fit into your world like that."

Godai laughed too. "I suppose not. I couldn't be a police officer either, so that's only fair." Then he fell quiet for a moment, index finger tracing the grain of the tabletop. "Still, if you ever change your mind..."

"Godai," Ichijou felt compelled to say, serious but not imperative, "what do you want in life?"

"For everyone I care about to be happy," Godai replied easily.

Ichijou nodded. "I'd say you spent a year taking care of that. But Godai." He leaned a little closer across the table. "Isn't there anything you ever want for yourself? Something just for you?"

Godai's eyes met his. He was smiling slightly, but there was old care in his eyes. "What about you, Ichijou-san?" he questioned softly. "Isn't there anything you want for yourself, more than anything else?"

"The things I want," Ichijou replied carefully, "I can't have. Not in this Japan. So I make the things I can have into the things I want."

Godai nodded once, his gaze never leaving Ichijou's. "Sometimes we can't have the things we want," he agreed. "Not if we're not willing to reach for them."

His words stole Ichijou's breath away, like a Grongi hitting him in the chest, the force of its blow throwing Ichijou across a room. Godai looked at him for a moment longer, then stood, gathering dishes into a stack to take to the kitchen.

"Godai," Ichijou said abruptly, grabbing Godai's arm as he rounded the table. Godai's bracelet, with its knots and beads, was rough under his fingers. "The things we want-- do you really believe, if we work hard at having them, that we can?"

Godai nodded once again, smiling just a little again. "Yes, Ichijou-san," he answered.


	3. Hansha

Chapter 3: _Hansha_ - Reverberation

Sometimes it seemed like Ichijou had spent all his life caught between what he wanted and what he needed to do. The duties that bound him--to fulfill the task that his father was not able to finish--did not allow him to fulfill his heart's longing. So he'd taken that need, set it aside, laid it to rest. Most days it didn't bother him that he would never have what others did. He had his job, after all, and he liked it. He was good at it. There was a certain indefinable satisfaction at catching a thief, a kidnapper, a murderer. It challenged the speed and agility of both his mind and body, and he wouldn't give it up for anything.

Still, a part of him whispered as he looked up from the paperwork he'd brought home, looked at the red roses Godai had brought to brighten his apartment, there was that want of someone with whom he could share his life fully. It wasn't that he didn't have friends, or that he didn't love his mother very much, but at the end of the day Ichijou came home to an empty apartment, usually with paperwork in hand. People might kid him about it, but no one ever questioned why a young workaholic detective didn't have a girlfriend. The answer was, after all, obvious. He didn't have time. He was married to his job.

Ichijou set down his pen and reached out to touch a rose, its crimson petal a living satin against his finger. He was still wearing the bracelet Godai had given him, he realized. He wondered if he should take it off, but the silver was warm and the bracelet's grasp comfortable against his skin. That probably meant something, but he wouldn't let himself think about it. If he made that choice, it could ruin everything he'd worked for. Even a hint of that choice--a whisper, a rumor--could derail his career. To an extent, he could understand why. No matter how capable he was, how competent, his fellow officers would never be able to look at him again without a voice in the back of their heads asking how he was looking at them. Without that implicit trust, his career would be over.

He let his hand fall away from the flower and picked up the pen again. He looked at the murder scene photographs arrayed before him without really seeing them. He'd considered options, of course. He could simply lie, using words like "best friend" and "housemate." He'd even thought about quitting the police force altogether and becoming a private detective. It was also possible to request a transfer to Tokyo, where most of the police force knew and liked Godai. Only the third option seemed to hold any hope, but even then, how long until it was forgotten, what Godai had done as Kuuga, and subtle yet unmistakable repercussions rained down for not being what a proper police detective was "supposed" to be?

Ultimately, Ichijou admitted to himself, he didn't know what he really thought or wanted. In a way he almost wished he'd never met Godai, to not have this confusion in his life, to not feel like this. But that thought, of never having met Godai at all, carried pain, and he knew he could never actually wish things that way. Knowing Godai had changed him and he never wanted to be without that difference, that strength.

For Godai Yuusuke it might be possible to make anything happen, with his can-dos and indefatigable smile. But for Ichijou Kaoru... that might not be possible.

* * *

Yuusuke had had nightmares for months, waking in a cold sweat in the middle of the night gasping for air, thinking he was still locked in that last battle with Daguba, bleeding from his heart and soul as much as from his body, unable to win as the Grongi leader laughed, rejoicing in pain, matching him blow for blow, kick for kick. 

He'd taken Daguba down, but it was Ichijou, with the special bullets Doctor Enokida had developed, who had delivered the final blow. Yuusuke now thought he had a reference for what hell was like: being trapped in that icy battle forever, never able to make a difference, to win, to stop the Grongi from killing everyone he loved for no reason... for a game.

It was in a way a relief when Doctor Tsubaki put the latest batch of X-rays up and revealed that the Amadam belt was still threaded through with cracks, months after the damage had occurred. The last time the stone had been damaged it had healed itself within days. This time... Yuusuke had the feeling it might never be able to repair itself.

"So Kuuga's gone, then," the doctor said eventually.

"No," Yuusuke replied, shaking his head. He formed his hand into a fist and tapped it against his chest, over his heart. "Kuuga's here."

Tsubaki looked at him for a minute, then nodded, smiling. "Still," he said, turning off the light box, "this means you can't transform any more."

Yuusuke half shrugged. "I don't need to, do I?"

"Heh." The doctor slouched back in his chair and changed the subject. "So, I heard you had a date with Ichijou last night."

Yuusuke's eyebrows shot up, surprised. "Oyassan told you?"

Tsubaki shook his head. "Sawatari-san."

"Ohhh?" Yuusuke inquired, voice tilting up to form a verbal question mark. "She didn't mention a date with you!"

Tsubaki reddened just slightly and coughed into one hand. "Yes, well. I kind of surprised her."

Yuusuke grinned. "How did it go?"

"Well..." Then the doctor stopped short. "How did we get to that? We were talking about your date with Ichijou!"

"But it's more interesting talking about other people, isn't it?" Yuusuke persisted.

Tsubaki just looked at him, then looked away, studying the x-rays again even though the light box was off. "You do know about Ichijou, don't you?" he asked.

"Know about...?" Yuusuke parroted, unsure what the doctor was implying.

"I've known him since high school. He's never had a date in all that time. I've drawn my own conclusions," the doctor said. Yuusuke nodded, adding the information to his own conclusions about Ichijou. "He's a friend. I've already had to patch him up too often. I don't want to add a broken heart to his charts."

"It'll be all right," Yuusuke said, giving Tsubaki a thumbs-up. "It will," he promised.

The doctor just looked at him for a long moment, then nodded, returning the gesture.

* * *

By the end Godai had been miserable, Ichijou thought, staring up at the ceiling. He'd kept his course, willing to sacrifice himself to stop the last of the Grongi, but he'd been more deeply unhappy than Ichijou thought he'd ever seen another person, fighting battle after battle that he'd never wanted to fight, seeing soul-scarring things that he hadn't had either the training or counseling to be able to ignore. 

Godai would never be a policeman. He had the heart for it, and the brains, but not the soul. He was too gentle. It was strange, to think of the person who had spent an entire year fighting as Kuuga in those terms, but somehow Godai was. Just because he _could_ fight didn't mean he was suited to. No, somehow Ichijou couldn't picture Godai anywhere other than the places he already was: behind the counter of the PorePore, surrounded by children at the Wakaba Preschool, and a part-time student of life at Jounan University.

"-jou-san! Ichijou-san!" Sound came suddenly back into focus.

"Sorry," Ichijou apologized immediately to Kameyama. "My mind was elsewhere."

"I guessed that," the junior beat cop replied sardonically. "Here. The Kitamaru case." He handed a thick folder to Ichijou.

"Sorry," Ichijou apologized again with a small bow, accepting the manila folder.

"Honestly," Kameyama pouted. "Don't try to tell me you were out late on a date last night."

Ichijou smiled and opened the folder. "Hardly. A friend came over and we ate in."

"Anyone I know?"

"A friend from Tokyo," Ichijou replied absently, leafing through the pages. There was something between the photos and the witness statements that didn't add up, he thought, frowning.

"Darn. And here I was hoping you finally had a girlfriend," Kameyama joked, walking off.

"Who has time?" Ichijou automatically replied, then stopped, the thin weight of the paper still between his fingers.

Time.

Would it be fair to Godai, to ask anything like that of him? Ichijou had been involved in shootouts more times than he cared to think about. His own father, like those of many of his colleagues, had worked hard but still failed to come home one day. He didn't have armor to stop bullets, or knives, or a shove in the back over a high railing...

He would have to think about it later, Ichijou decided, and ask his mother why she'd married a policeman when she surely had to have known about that kind of danger. And ask if she'd make the same choice again, knowing what she knew now.


	4. Kaiwa

Chapter 4: _Kaiwa_ - Conversations

"Minori, are you angry?" Yuusuke asked, stacking blocks inside a crate, trying to see how many he could fit in one level.

"Angry?" she asked, half-turning from where she was wiping a cloth across the windowsill.

"About Ichijou-san."

Minori clapped her hands together, regardless of the dust rag she held, her eyes widening in excitement. "You told him, Onii-chan?"

"Mm, not in so many words," Yuusuke confessed, rubbing at the back of his head with one hand as it occurred to him that maybe he should have been more explicit. He didn't _think_ Ichijou had mistaken his intention, but...

"Onii-chan!" Minori immediately chided.

"But it's not that easy," Yuusuke protested.

"That's because you never dated," she scolded, turning back to her cleaning.

"But I never found anyone I was interested in, and besides, I don't think anyone was ever interested in me," he replied, slotting the last few blocks into the holes he'd left for them.

"You say that, but I remember how much chocolate you used to get on Valentine's Day," Minori retorted, turning to wipe off the standing piano's keys and then the keyboard cover.

"So? I remember how much you got on White Day," Yuusuke replied, hefting the crate and taking it over to the storage cupboard. He grinned at his sister. "You didn't date everyone who gave you chocolate, did you?"

"You're missing the point, Onii-chan," Minori replied, with a tone in her voice that teasingly implied she thought he was being particularly obtuse. "You didn't date _anyone._ But now that you've finally found someone, I'm not going to be angry, regardless of who that person is. Especially since it's Ichijou-san." She finished wiping off the top of the piano and folded her dusting cloth over to expose a clean side while Yuusuke looked around for anything else to put away. Spying a few books that had been left out, he went after them as though they might sprout legs and run off. "Besides," she continued, "it's not like it's unexpected."

"It's not?" Yuusuke asked, shuffling the books into order.

"Your letters were always full of him," Minori informed him. "'Tell Ichijou-san I'm fine,' 'I saw a bird today that reminded me a little of Ichijou-san, I don't know why,' 'Ichijou-san should try running up the side of a Mayan pyramid for his morning jog--I think it would wind even him,'" she ruthlessly quoted from memory.

"Oh, I did write all that, didn't I?" Yuusuke asked.

"You did," Minori confirmed with a nod. She tucked her cleaning cloth into her apron pocket, turning and smiling at him. "So if he makes you happy, Onii-chan, I'm glad."

He shelved the books with a thump and straightened, standing. "Thank you, Minori. If so, we just need to find you a boyfriend now, right?"

"I can find one for myself, but thanks," she replied. Yuusuke grinned. "So what was Ichijou-san's answer?"

"I don't know yet," Yuusuke confessed. That took a little bit of the gold out of his day, but he kept smiling at his sister anyway. "After all, you can never know another person's heart fully, right?"

"Onii-chan..." Minori looked worried now.

"Well, it'll be all right," Yuusuke assured her. "No matter what happens, it'll be all right." He gave her a thumbs up. She hesitated, then returned the gesture. "After all, if he says no, then it just wasn't meant to be, right?" And that thought hurt, but he smiled at her despite the discomfort. But if Ichijou really didn't like him that way--though he was 90 percent sure the detective did--it was one of those things that Yuusuke couldn't change, not even with a smile and the strongest determination in the world. And if it was so, he would have to accept it, that his friend wouldn't ever be anything more, and keep the pain to himself.

After all, Yuusuke was good at keeping smiling through pain until it went away. It was his number one skill.

* * *

"Hello, Mother," Ichijou said, brushing a kiss against her cheek before bending down to unlace his shoes and step out of them, neatly arranging them in the genkan. 

"Hello, Kaoru-san," she replied, hanging his overcoat on the coat rack as he stepped up into the house. "How has work been?"

"There's one case that's--" he started, then stopped. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't bore you with that."

"Your work's never boring," she disagreed, leading him into the family room where, as expected, two fresh cups of tea sat waiting for them, steaming.

"Not to me, it isn't," he agreed, waiting until she sat before taking the seat opposite her. "Kameyama said to say hello. I think he's hoping for another batch of your cookies," he confided. "Actually, I think the entire department is."

As he'd expected, she smiled and dimpled just a little bit. Strange how sometimes he could catch a glimpse of the girl she must have been thirty years before, when his father had married her. "I might have to see about baking some more, then," she replied.

Ichijou smiled. "So how has the hospital been?" he asked. She brightened a little--like him, she truly loved her work--and began talking while he listened. That topic kept them for a while, until dinner was ready and he helped her carry it to the table, insisting on serving her though she kept trying to serve him instead. It was a old game they played, and a familiar, comforting ritual.

"Do you like it?" she asked, gesturing at the trout on his plate. "It's a new recipe I got from Akiko-san at work. I'm not sure about it..."

Ichijou took another bite and considered the flavor. "I like it," he decided. "It reminds me of Mexican food a little."

"Mexican food?" she asked teasingly.

"A friend of mine recently came back from a trip there and insisted on making me dinner in their style," Ichijou explained. "It was good. I was surprised."

"Maybe you could ask your friend for their recipe and I could try making it sometime," his mother replied.

"Maybe." Ichijou took a breath and let it out. "Mother, were you ever sorry that you married Father... that you married a policeman?"

She blinked, lowering her chopsticks. "No," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Not even when he died?" Ichijou pressed.

"No. Is something wrong, Kaoru-san?"

He looked down at the tabletop, trying to order his thoughts. "There's... someone I think I've come to care about," he admitted, and even that much seemed like he was saying far too much. "But I don't know if it would be fair to that person to say anything," he continued, looking up. "I carry a gun because I need it. Being a police detective isn't a safe line of work. I don't want that person to always be waiting for the call that says I'm not coming back."

His mother's lips tightened into a line briefly and she set down her chopsticks. "In the emergency room today we lost a man about your age. He was a husband and the father of three little girls. He was hit by a truck on his way home from work. He was a grocer, Kaoru-san."

"There's a difference between an accidental death and being someone who deliberately places themselves in the line of danger," Ichijou argued.

"Tell that to his wife," his mother replied implacably.

He sighed. "I know you're right. I just don't want to place someone in that position. Someone else," he amended, looking up at her.

"I never regretted marrying your father for a day," his mother told him. "Not even the day he died. I'm thankful for the fifteen years I did have with Tomio-san, and no matter how much it hurt to lose him, I wouldn't trade that for anything."

Ichijou sighed again and placed his right hand flat against the table. He traced the wood grain pattern with his fingertips. Godai's bracelet was still there, hidden beneath his shirt sleeve. "I just don't think it would be fair to put him in that position."

His mother was quiet for a minute, then asked softly, "What kind of person is he, Kaoru-san?"

Ichijou's eyes flew wide as he looked up at his mother, realizing the mistake he'd made. "Mother, I--"

"It's all right," she said quietly.

He couldn't believe that. "I'm sorry," he apologized, looking back down at the table.

"It's all right, Kaoru-san," she said again. "To be honest, I've had suspicions for a while now." He looked back up at her, surprised. She was smiling at him. "After so many years of you not accepting Valentine's Day chocolates I began to wonder," she confessed. "And after a certain point a mother stops wanting what's normal for her child and just starts wanting him to be happy."

"I'm not... unhappy," he protested.

"Perhaps not," she agreed, "but you don't have anyone that makes you smile either. Does he make you smile, Kaoru-san?"

He thought about Godai, with his own smiles and his thumbs-ups and his indomitable force of personality, and nearly had to smile just at the thought. "Yes," he answered quietly.


	5. Bara

Chapter 5: _Bara_ - Rose

The woman who entered the cafe was not particularly tall, but she was stunning, Nana thought. The chiffon skirts of her rose-colored dress fluttered around her calves in the wake of the door's closing as she stood there for a moment, looking around the cafe. "Welcome," Oyassan called from behind the counter, his greeting echoed a second later by Nana's own. "Please, have a seat," he invited, gesturing at the otherwise empty counter. The woman looked at where he gestured, then slowly walked over. Nana watched her cool, elegant stride enviously, trying to figure out how to copy it. Nothing in the way the woman moved seemed quite real as she ran a hand across the back of the chair before pulling it out and seating herself. Her fingernails, painted to match her dress instead of the deep red blazer she wore over it, gleamed softly in the light.

"So, what can I get you?" Oyassan asked. "Something to drink, maybe? Tea, coffee?"

"Coffee...?" she asked, like it was something she'd never heard of before.

"Oh, very good, let me get you some," Nana's uncle said, straightening. The woman's eyes widened as she stared at the front of his apron.

"That character," she said. "Why is it there?"

"Oh, this?" Oyassan asked, indicating the symbol on the shop apron with one hand while he stirred the coffee with the other. "One of my employees embroidered this on. He should be back in a while."

The woman looked off into the distance. "I will wait for him," she said.

Nana's eyes widened. "Are you also a member of Godai-san's fan club?" she asked excitedly.

The woman's pinned-back curls barely moved as she turned her head to look at Nana. "'Godai-san'?" she asked. "I don't know that person." Her eyes were flat, like a snake's, and Nana put one foot behind the other, almost backing up before she realized what she was doing. Oyassan, though, didn't seem to notice as she set a cup down in front of the woman.

"Here you go!" he said cheerfully.

She looked at him, then down at the cup. Slowly she raised it to her lips, took a sniff, then a delicate sip. She lowered the cup a little, gazing into the dark liquid's depths. "This is... not unpleasant," she said, as though she was trying to convince herself.

Oyassan beamed. "Oh, you like it? It's my own blend!" She looked back up at him and that seemed to be all the encouragement he needed to start babbling on about coffee bean varieties and how long they were roasted and ground. Nana watched him and their customer warily and tried not to wish so hard that Godai was back already.

* * *

Yuusuke braked to a stop in front of the PorePore and kicked the kickstand down by habit, removing his helmet as he dismounted. He shook his hair free, dispersing the heat buildup as he set the helmet on the seatback and bounded forward toward the building. "Good afternoon," he said, opening the door. "Oh, Nana-chan, you're still here?" he asked. "I thought you had a rehearsal this afternoon." 

Her eyes flew wide and she checked her watch. "I'm late!" she cried and yanked her apron over her head, grabbing her purse. "Oyassan, Godai-san, I'll be back later!" she promised in a rush, shoving the apron into Godai's hands as she yanked the front door back open and ran through.

"Have a good time," Oyassan called after her. "Oh, Yuusuke," he said as Yuusuke shook out the apron and pulled it on over his own head, buttoning it behind himself, "this lady's been waiting for you." He nodded at the only customer, a woman of about Yuusuke's own age who sat at the counter, a half-empty coffee cup in front of her.

"Hello," Yuusuke greeted, stepping behind the counter himself. She seemed somehow familiar, but he couldn't immediately place her.

She looked up at him, expressionless. "Kuuga," she said.

Yuusuke's eyes widened as he realized what she had to be, and he placed himself between her and Oyassan, who protested. "Grongi!"

The woman stood and reached across the counter, her hand lingering first above Yuusuke's heart, then drifting lower to his stomach. Yuusuke tensed but didn't move. Behind him Oyassan was silent.

"You defeated N'Daguba'Zeba," the woman said eventually, withdrawing her hand. "You are now the leader of the Grongi."

"There are more of you?" Yuusuke asked, halfway between fear and horror. If there were and he wasn't able to transform into Kuuga--

"No." The woman resumed her seat. "I am the last."

Slowly Yuusuke relaxed. He didn't feel like she was a threat. Oyassan stepped out from behind him, now keeping a wary distance from the Grongi. "Why have you come to me?" Yuusuke asked.

"The Gameskeeper reports to the new Lord to learn his will for the new Game," the woman told him. "It is the Law."

Yuusuke nodded slowly, thinking. Part of him wanted to declare that he wasn't any kind of leader of Grongi. Part of him wanted to tell her that the new Game had a "no killing people" rule. "What's your name?" he asked instead.

"I am called Ra'Baruba'De," she said, touching the handle of her cup.

"You used to have a tattoo, didn't you?" Ichijou had mentioned it, a white rose mark on her forehead. Like Daguba's white beetle mark, so very like Kuuga's own symbol...

Her fingers didn't quite drift up to her forehead. "It is no more," she said, and he thought she sounded sad. "The Rinto warrior took care of that."

"Ichijou-san did?"

She nodded but didn't say anthing more, and the realization occurred to Yuusuke that he needed to let Ichijou know that B-1 was still alive. Somehow he didn't think the detective would take the news well.

* * *

When Godai called him and let him know, in his garrulous roundabout way, that Number B-1 was not, in fact, dead, Ichijou did not take the news well. His first instinct was to tell Godai to shoot her again, but Godai was a civilian and thus didn't have a gun, much less any of Doctor Enokida's special bullets. His second instinct was to drive the two-plus hours to the PorePore and take care of B-1 himself, again, but that was derailed by the fact that she'd surely vanish if she knew what he was going to do. So he gave in to his third, reluctant, instinct, which was to trust Godai's own instincts for the time being. "Don't let her leave," he instructed. 

"Ichijou-san," Godai replied over the phone, "I don't think she has anywhere to go."

"She's one of them," Ichijou reminded his friend.

Godai hesitated, then said softly "I don't think she is, not anymore."


	6. Chishiki

Chapter 6: _Chishiki_ - Knowledge

It must be hard, being the last one of your kind, Sakurako thought, looking at the Grongi woman who sat straight-backed in the plastic chair as Doctors Tsubaki and Enokida pored over the results of the barrage of tests they'd run on her. Not that Sakurako had any kind of sympathy for the Grongi; no, after having too many friends and colleagues slaughtered by Number Zero, after losing Godai not once but twice, and after being nearly killed by one herself, she had no sympathy for them at all. Still, the part of her that was an archaeologist and researcher remembered that it had been the Grongi who taught the Rinto people how to write, and wanted to ask questions of this last living individual. But somehow she didn't think Ichijou would appreciate that. She glanced at the detective, thinking she'd never seen him so tense, his attention divided evenly between Ra'Babuba'De and Godai.

Godai seemed to have appointed himself some sort of guardian of the woman, or at least was willing to give her more of a chance than the rest of them were, from the way he stood subtly between her and Ichijou. The quietly conferring doctors seemed to reach a consensus and turned to face the rest of them. Ichijou's face spoke volumes about what he wanted their verdict to be. "She's human," Tsubaki reported. "Approximate age twenty-eight, height and weight normal, no anomalies found. Blood type AB," he added, and seeing Ichijou's stifled twitch, Sakurako suddenly knew what blood type the detective was. She wasn't surprised.

Tsubaki took the chair in front of Ra'Baruba'De and sat down, leaning toward her. "How many people did you kill?" he asked bluntly.

She looked at him emotionlessly. Even when the needle had gone in her arm to draw a blood sample she hadn't so much as twitched, looking on dispassionately instead, a bit like an empress. Or someone with a thick wall of glass holding her apart from the rest of the world. "The Gameskeeper does not participate in the Game," she said.

"Thank goodness," Godai said effusively. "You see, you don't have to arrest her after all, Ichijou-san."

"She's still an accessory to, an accomplice to, and guilty of incitement to murder," the detective retorted.

"Ichijou-san..."

"It's not always possible," Jean said suddenly, looking up from where he'd been gazing off into nothing, "to judge one culture by another. Perhaps we should be asking... why did the Grongi kill humans?"

Ra'Baruba'De assessed him coolly, then looked away. "We had already long lived in these lands when the Rinto first came," she said. "They were, in the beginning, like any other tribe of passing animals, save that their form was like ours. But they were not people; they had no speech, no writing, no culture. They were beasts. But their form intrigued he who was then N'Daguba'Zeba, and he thought they might be distant kin, fallen to a lesser state. He commanded gentility toward the beasts, and seeing no harm in it then, we obeyed."

"You were here before the Rinto?" Sakurako asked.

Ra'Baruba'De ignored her and continued. "Over time, we taught them speech. We gave them fire, that they might not be cold. We taught them weaving, that they might clothe themselves. We gave them writing, and agriculture, and knowledge of the seasons, the sun and the stars. All that they were, they owed to us. Once in a while, we took one of the comelier or brighter into our homes, as a servant, as a companion."

"As a pet," Tsubaki cut in.

Ra'Baruba'De ignored him too. "Some bred with the Rinto, to see if their bloodlines might not be elevated. N'Daguba'Zeba was one such. His halfling son was raised among us, and proved quick and clever beyond his dam's kind. When our Lord felt the pull of the shadow world upon him finally, it was agreed that his spawn might join the Game, along with N'Daguba'Zeba's true son of our blood. By then the Rinto had grown thick and numerous; as with all succession rites, threats to our land and people must be removed. The Rinto were to be thinned." She stopped for a moment and seemed to be looking into the past.

"The halfling... Kuuga... disappointed his sire and would not compete," she said slowly. "It was instead his full-blooded brother who won the rank of N'Daguba'Zeba. But perhaps because that brother slaughtered the halfling's dam among the other Rinto, the halfling betrayed us. He stole some of the sacred stones and with the smithcraft we had taught him, fashioned them into armor for warrior and steed. Where he could not fight against his dam's folk, he fought against his sire's. Still, he was weak," she said with a hint of scorn, "and merely imprisoned N'Daguba'Zeba into sleep. Bereft of our Lord's will, those of us remaining decided to sleep as well, waiting until the day he should wake us. And when he did, he declared the new Game, vengeance on the Rinto who had betrayed us, razed our homes, killed our children, buried them under stone and bound them by the very rope we had taught them to make. But now the Grongi... are no more."

"The Grongi were the kami, weren't they?" Sakurako breathed in sudden understanding. All of a sudden it made sense... shapeshifters, nature spirits with powers beyond those of man... She could hardly breathe for the insight. And the horror. They'd slaughtered the kami. The kami had slaughtered them.

"Sawatari-san, you can't believe--" Ichijou protested.

"There are two sides to any story, Ichijou-san," Godai said lowly. "No one fights without a reason."

"Godai--" But the expression on Godai's face drew Ichijou's words up short. "Godai, you can't believe," he tried again.

"But I do," Godai replied. "She doesn't feel like she's lying. What does she have to lie about, anymore?"

"I would rather have died with my people than live among the Rinto," Ra'Baruba'De said, looking up at the detective. "The next time you kill me, aim more true, warrior."

Who seemed taken aback, looking around the room. He took a quick breath, swallowed. "I'm sorry," he started. "I can't-- I'm sorry," he apologized again with a little bow, and left the room in a rush.

"Ichijou-san!" Godai cried out a hair faster than many of the rest of them did. He, too, looked around the room. "Excuse me," he said, and ran out the door after Ichijou.

* * *

Yuusuke caught up with Ichijou in the underground parking lot. The detective stood by his car, head down, hands fisted. Taking a deep breath, Yuusuke slowly walked up and stopped behind him. "Ichijou-san," he said quietly.

"We made gods out of murderers," Ichijou said, his voice thick with despair.

"Well, maybe," Yuusuke admitted. He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling, trying to put his thoughts together into clear words. "But... do you know why Kuuga's Ultimate Form didn't turn me evil, Ichijou-san?"

Ichijou turned to look at him. "Because you're not evil," he replied.

Yuusuke shook his head. "Well, maybe that's so," he admitted, "but I don't think that's it entirely, Ichijou-san. The reason it didn't... is because I knew it could. Not that the armor could turn me evil, but that _I_ could turn evil. I could have become like N'Daguba'Zeba. But because I knew that, because I realized that and kept mindful of it... I didn't."

"How could you be evil?" Ichijou almost scoffed.

"Do you remember Number 42?" Yuusuke asked.

Ichijou nodded. "Of course. You protected that boy--"

"I wanted to hurt him," Yuusuke cut in. "I was so angry. I wanted to hurt him for doing that to _kids_. For enjoying it like that. And, Ichijou-san, while I was fighting him... I liked it." He couldn't feel any pain over that admission; he'd made peace with that part of himself. But he looked Ichijou straight in the eyes, not wanting the detective to misunderstand what he was saying. "I enjoyed fighting him, hurting him... killing him. I felt he deserved it. The same way the Grongi must have felt about us. That's why I didn't turn evil, Ichijou-san. Because I knew it was in me."

"Godai, you're nothing like them," Ichijou denied.

"I'm exactly like them," Yuusuke replied. "And, Ichijou-san, if I believe there's darkness inside me, then I have to believe there's light inside them."

"Godai..." Ichijou looked lost, and Yuusuke felt the urge to comfort him.

"She hasn't killed anyone," he said, taking a step closer to the detective, "and everyone and everything she's ever known has been killed or torn away. I'm not asking you to like her, Ichijou-san. But I think she's worth helping."

"You really believe she's not evil?" Ichijou asked, and they were close, so close that Yuusuke could almost feel the warmth of Ichijou's breath on his face.

"Yes," Yuusuke answered, and they stood there, looking at one another, motionless.

* * *

Godai's last words kept echoing in Ichijou's ears long after the other man had left him in the garage, heading back toward Tsubaki's office. "Evil isn't inherent, Ichijou-san. Neither is good. They're both just what we choose."

If Ra'Baruba'De wasn't inherently evil... then why had Ichijou shot her with the intention to kill, not just once, but twice?

Godai was likely right. He was _always_ right about this kind of thing in the end.

What if the evil wasn't in the Grongi, but in Ichijou's own heart?

Ichijou opened his car door and sat down.

He stared at his hands on the steering wheel for a long, long time.


	7. Shokkan

Chapter 7: _Shokkan_ - A Sense of Touch

After not hearing from Ichijou for three days and having every attempt to locate him via phone, either at the Nagano police station or at his home or on his cell phone, end in failure, Yuusuke took to the road again, heading for Ichijou's apartment. If the detective was avoiding him, he thought, he would simply stake out the man's apartment and outwait him there. When he banged on Ichijou's apartment door, though, he was surprised to find it almost immediately answered.

"Ichijou-san?" he asked dumbly. The detective, dressed in crumpled pajamas with his hair still messed up from bed, blinked at him. "You look terrible," he added without thinking.

"Godai...?" Ichijou asked. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Yuusuke took the open door as an invitation and stepped inside. "You haven't answered your phone for three days," he accused mildly, looking around. There was a takeout container left on the counter, he saw, and the whole apartment seemed slightly stale. Like no one had been home for a few days.

"S-sorry," Ichijou apologized. "I haven't been home. There was a case. A little girl..."

Yuusuke blinked and looked critically at Ichijou, whose hands, he saw now, were trembling slightly. "Ichijou-san," he said softly. He smiled, understanding. "When was the last time you slept?" he asked rhetorically. "Never mind," he cut off any potential reply. Taking the detective's shoulders, he steered him toward the bedroom. "Go to sleep, Ichijou-san."

"But--"

"Sleep," Yuusuke repeated.

"Godai--"

"I'll be here," Yuusuke promised. "I'll make dinner or something. Sleep, Ichijou-san." He tucked the detective into bed and closed the blinds.

"I'm sorry," Ichijou apologized, for what Yuusuke didn't know.

"Shh," Yuusuke said. "Sleep."

* * *

When Ichijou woke the room was dark and something smelled appetizing. He lay there for a moment under the covers, trying not to think, but gave it up when his stomach twisted, growling. He hadn't eaten much either over the last three days, he recalled now. At least they'd caught the murderer. Slowly he sat up and discovered that Godai had left slippers neatly lined up for him at the side of the bed. He should get dressed, but found he didn't have the energy to bother. And... it was Godai. If he could stand anyone seeing him in this state, it would surely be him.

Opening his bedroom door quietly, to his surprise he heard singing. And Godai wasn't bad at it, not at all. The unbidden thought came to Ichijou as he wondered how much practice Godai got in singing in the acoustics of bathrooms.

"I didn't know you sang," he commented as he stepped up to the counter.

Godai turned around, wooden spoon in hand. Ichijou's kitchen apron on him had already become a familiar sight. "Ah, Ichijou-san. Good morning. Or, I guess," he said with a glance toward the windows, "good evening. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No." Ichijou shook his head and rested his elbows on the counter. "What are you making?"

"Spaghetti. I hope that's all right? I had to run out to get some of the ingredients, but I didn't think you'd mind if I took your key for that. It's back on its hook." He nodded towards Ichijou's key rack. "Are you hungry now, or should it wait a bit? The sauce is fine, I just have to start the pasta."

"Now would be okay," Ichijou replied, and watched as Godai smiled brightly and turned on the burner beneath one of the pots on Ichijou's stove. "I'm... sorry I didn't answer the phone."

"It's okay," Godai answered, shaking his head. "I should have thought that you were working, not that..."

"That I was avoiding you?" Ichijou finished for him. He sighed. "I wasn't," he swore. "I'm... I don't like that woman, and I don't trust her, Godai, and that's probably not likely to change easily. But if you really think that she won't do anyone harm, then... I _do_ trust you."

"Ichijou-san..."

Ichijou smiled, still tired despite the hours of sleep. "Even if I was mad at you, I don't think I'd ignore you like that. I don't think I _could_."

Godai arched a brow. "'The mistake of a lifetime'?" he quoted skeptically.

"'Well, it's all right, isn't it'?" Ichijou quoted back.

Godai laughed a little and turned to measure spaghetti out into his hand.

* * *

"So, since I _haven't_ been answering my phone," Ichijou said a while later, over dinner, "where is she?"

"Ra'Baruba'De?" Yuusuke asked. Ichijou nodded in confirmation. "She's staying with Minori."

"Minori?" Ichijou's fork paused above his plate. "Does she know?"

"Mmm." Yuusuke nodded. "She doesn't mind though, or at least not much. I just wish... neither Minori nor I can think of what might make her smile."

"You really want her to smile?" Ichijou asked.

Yuusuke nodded. "I know she hasn't been human, and is probably guilty of a lot of things, but... well, it's kind of like seeing a rosebud never bloom," he extemporized. "People should be happy. Even her."

Ichijou just shook his head. "You just want everyone to be able to smile," he agreed.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with that," Yuusuke argued.

"I don't think there is either," Ichijou replied. "After all, that's what I do, too, in a way. Work to keep people safe so that people like you can make them happy."

Yuusuke twirled spaghetti aimlessly on his fork. "You think you don't make people happy?" he asked lowly.

Ichijou shook his head. "Not the way you do."

"Then I think you don't give yourself enough credit, Ichijou-san." Ichijou looked up at him, expression startled, so Yuusuke changed the subject. "Your case--the one that had you up and running around for three days solid--it's closed?"

Ichijou was still blinking at him. "Yeah," he said eventually. "A little girl was... was killed." His hesitation spelled out that it hadn't been a pretty death or an easy sight. Yuusuke's gut twisted in sympathy. "We eventually figured out that it was her stepfather, and that this wasn't the first time..."

"You caught him, right?" Yuusuke asked quietly.

"Yeah. Eventually."

"Thank you." Ichijou looked startled again at that. Yuusuke smiled a little at his surprise.

"He didn't hurt you," Ichijou eventually said.

"He took away a little girl's smile," Yuusuke replied. And, really, that was all the reason he needed to state.

* * *

After they finished dinner Godai surprised Ichijou by bringing out scoops of ice cream decorated with mint sprigs and wafer cookies. Between that and the Western classical music playing quietly on the stereo, Ichijou almost forgot he was in his pajamas.

"You're going to spoil me, at this rate," he declared, pointing his spoon at Godai. "This is twice now you've made dinner, and this time with dessert."

Godai grinned engagingly. "You could use some spoiling, Ichijou-san," he declared. "You obviously need someone to take care of you after cases like that."

That was it, Ichijou decided. "Right, I'm turning the tables and cooking for you next time," he declared.

Godai's eyes went wide. "It'd have to be here, Ichijou-san, because I don't have my own kitchen," he replied.

"So that's why you work at the PorePore," Ichijou teased. "Kitchen access."

Godai grinned, his smile neither an affirmation nor a denial. His gaze drifted to the wall clock behind Ichijou. "I should get going, though," he said, pushing back from the table and starting to stand. "It's a couple hours back to Tokyo--"

"Stay," Ichijou said without thinking.

Godai's eyes widened. "Ichijou-san," he said.

"At least the night," Ichijou amended hesitantly. "It's far too late for you to drive back safely."

Something softly faded out of Godai's surprised expression, leaving Ichijou with the unpleasant urge to kick himself. "All right," Godai said, nodding. "Is it all right if I use your shower before turning in, though, Ichijou-san?"

"Yeah," Ichijou replied with a nod. He'd said the wrong thing, he knew it, but there was no way he could take it back now.

"Well, then." Godai took his and Ichijou's empty dishes to the sink and turned on the spray to wash them out. After a second Ichijou followed, wiping the bowls and spoons dry as Godai washed them, setting them back in the cupboards. Godai disappeared into the bathroom for his shower as Ichijou tried to analyze his own sense of disquiet, only to come up frustrated.

The problem was that he knew exactly what he felt, and what he thought Godai felt, but that he still couldn't bring himself to make the gesture, to say the words that would bridge that gap...

Godai didn't sing in the shower after all, he thought absently as he made up the sofa into his bed for the night. As his guest, Godai would of course sleep in the bed...

His train of thought derailed when Godai came out of the bathroom shirtless, squeezing water out of his hair with a towel.

Godai stopped and blinked at him. "Ichijou-san?"

Ichijou struggled to find his thoughts. "It just seems a little strange," he finally managed. "All those injuries you got from the Grongi and not a mark on you."

"Ah." Godai shrugged. "Well, that's what armor's for, right?" he asked cheerfully.

Ichijou managed a weak laugh. "Yeah," he agreed with a nod.

Godai cocked his head to one side, looking at the sofa. "For me?" he asked.

"Well, actually..."

"You are not giving up your bed for me, Ichijou-san," Godai informed him, amusement mixed with an implacability that reminded Ichijou of Kuuga's Titan form. "Not when you're the one still running short on sleep. Sofas are perfectly fine for me."

In the end, of course, Ichijou had to give in. In retrospect, he decided, he should not have been surprised at that result. "Good night, Ichijou-san," Godai said.

"Good night, Godai," he replied, and shut the bedroom door between them. Standing there, his hand still on the knob, Ichijou silently let his head fall forward until it pressed against the painted wood.


	8. Hakujou

Chapter 8: _Hakujou_ - Confession

Yuusuke woke to the smell of rice and soup and the sound of something softly sizzling. Blinking his way awake, he yawned, stretching as he sat up. While not the most comfortable thing ever, Ichijou's sofa had been much better than a lot of the surfaces he ended up sleeping on.

"Good morning, Godai," Ichijou said from the kitchen, looking up from where he was chopping something, only the movement of his wrists and the tang of the knife visible beneath the breakfast bar's surface.

"Good morning, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke replied, pushing his way free of the comforter. Slippers waited by his feet and he wondered how long Ichijou had been up, pale sunlight barely starting to stream through the windows.

"I hope a Japanese breakfast is all right?" Ichijou asked as Yuusuke shambled over toward the kitchen. He placed a cup of green tea on the counter.

"Thank you," Yuusuke said, accepting the piping hot cup. "I'm an omnivore," he answered the question.

Ichijou smiled a little, using his blade's spine to brush the spring onions he'd been chopping into a small bowl. "I guess you'd have to be, wouldn't you?"

Yuusuke nodded, taking a sip of the steaming ambrosia--somehow it had been no surprise to find that Ichijou had really, really good tea stocked in his kitchen--before answering "An adventurer can't be choosy."

Ichijou's smile was warm as he ladled miso soup into two bowls, sprinkling the onions on top. Yuusuke hastily set down his cup to carry the two (hot, hot, very hot!) bowls to the table while Ichijou dished rice and salmon onto two plates and arranged pickled vegetables beside them as an accompaniment.

As they ate, Yuusuke's mind wandered (prompted by Ichijou's inquiry of what he had planned for the day, which was helping out at the preschool) to what Minori had said, about his approach to Ichijou possibly having been too subtle. He turned the question over in his mind as he addressed his rice: how to say what he meant, in a way that was clear without placing too much pressure on Ichijou... in a way that they could both laugh off if it turned out Yuusuke was wrong about what Ichijou felt.

He looked at the red roses, still fresh, that sat on Ichijou's table. He'd faced down how many Grongi? He could manage this too.

"Ichijou-san," he started.

"Hmm?" Ichijou looked up at him.

"When we talked the other day about the things we wanted, I never did give you an answer, did I?" Yuusuke asked quietly. "About what I wanted."

"Godai..."

"There is someone I want," Yuusuke confessed. "Someone I think I could be happy with, and maybe that person could be happy with me, which isn't as easy a thing as it sounds like sometimes." He took a breath. "Ichijou-san, that person is--"

"Don't," Ichijou choked. His eyes were wide and pleading as he looked at Yuusuke, and Yuusuke felt something die quietly in his chest. "Godai. I can't..."

And he'd known, somewhere deep inside, that Ichijou would be risking too much even just by accepting his confession, but Yuusuke hadn't expected it to hurt so much. It was like a knife in his chest, like wintery air on a mountain plain in Nagano stealing his breath away.

Deliberately, Yuusuke took a breath. He'd faced down how many Grongi, he'd survived even Daguba... he could live through this. He had to. He would. "Well, that's all right, then," he said quietly, and finished the last bite of his rice and gulped the last of his cooling tea. It hurt almost too much for him to smile, but he did so anyway. "I should get going--it's a couple hours back to Tokyo and I promised Minori I'd help her this morning..." He kept a steady stream of words up, using them as a shield to hide from his pain, as he carried his dishes to the sink and then hunted up his jacket, keys in its pocket, and found his shoes where he'd left them by the door. He looked back up at Ichijou where the detective still sat alone, frozen at the table, and almost had to feel sorry for him. He straightened. "It'll be all right, Ichijou-san," he promised. "It will." This wouldn't ruin their friendship. Yuusuke wouldn't let it. "I just need to go for now."

The door's closing behind him felt overly dramatic, but even so, Yuusuke refused to run.

* * *

He'd said no. The thought echoed through Ichijou's mind. No, worse than saying no, he hadn't even let Godai finish telling him...

The person he'd wanted, confessing to him, and he hadn't even heard Godai out. Ichijou's head fell forward into his hand as he tried to figure out why he was such an idiot. Why he couldn't just accept this one thing that he wanted. The wall clock ticked on softly, loudly, in his empty apartment that smelled of breakfast and the roses Godai had brought him.

Godai wouldn't let this ruin their friendship, but it would be impossible for things to ever be quite the same between them again. Even with Godai, there would always be that thin edge of refusal between them. Because there was no way that Godai hadn't known that Ichijou wanted him too.

_If I'd said yes..._

Who would have blamed him? Not his mother. Surely not any of Godai's friends. Only--in theory, in potentia--his coworkers.

Ichijou loved his job. But was it, he found himself suddenly asking himself, worth what being as he was "supposed to" would cost him the rest of his life?

Somehow he found his feet. And his coat, keys in its pockets. And his shoes by the door. And then it was the door shutting behind him and his feet pounding against the ground, running, hoping that he wasn't too late--

* * *

"Godai!"

Yuusuke looked up at the shout of his name. He sat astride his bike, riding gloves just pulled on but helmet still in his lap. Ichijou was stopped at the bottom of the staircase that led from his apartment to the parking structure, cream trench coat swirling around him as he tried to catch his breath.

"Ichijou...san...?" Yuusuke asked, surprised. And confused. And trying not to let hope bloom.

Ichijou quickly crossed the space between them. "Godai... _Yuusuke_," he said, and it had been a long time since Yuusuke had heard Ichijou say his full name, and never with an emphasis like that on his given name.

"Yes?" he asked.

Ichijou seemed to be at war with himself, fighting to find words. "I need... will you give me time?" he asked.

Time. Hope suddenly bloomed so hard and fast, happiness on its heels, that it almost hurt more than the pain had done. "Yes," Yuusuke answered, finding he was smiling even without meaning to. "All the time you need, Ichijou-san." Light entered Ichijou's expression too, an ease that was almost worrisome in the fact that Yuusuke had never seen it before. _So this is what he looks like happy,_ Yuusuke thought.

"You'd better get going, then," was all Ichijou said. "Your sister will be expecting you."

"Yeah," Yuusuke replied.

"Give her my regards."

Yuusuke nodded, putting his helmet on and fastening the chin strap. "I'll give you a call this evening, if that's all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ichijou replied, with his own nod as Godai started the bike. Godai gave him a thumbs-up which Ichijou returned, and pretended not to notice that Ichijou stood there watching as he sped out of the structure and back toward Tokyo.


	9. Mimoto

Chapter 9: _Mimoto_ - Identity

Yuusuke grinned himself silly, playing with the kids. He loved Minori's charges, every last one of them, and helping them with their flower growing projects was nothing but fun. He cut and pasted right along with them until they had a whole wall of blossoms to keep their spirits up until the real ones they'd planted bloomed. With the warmth of summer and the buzzing of cicadas, it surely wouldn't be long.

Ra'Baruba'De stood off to the side, watching him as he guided small hands holding safety scissors along the lines drawn on paper. She didn't help much, but Yuusuke didn't think she was being as reserved and stand-offish as she had been, either. Something in the way she stood seemed soft to him, and maybe... hurt? Longing? He wasn't sure what name to give to the emotion he thought he felt from her. But a look at Minori where she stood off to one side confirmed that his sister had seen it too.

He waited until it was recess time and the children were playing in the yard before stepping softly to Ra'Baruba'De's side and waiting for her to speak.

"They are so noisy," she said eventually, watching the preschoolers, "the children of the Rinto."

"Well, they're kids," Yuusuke replied, shrugging.

She turned to look at him. "You, too, are noisy," she stated. "It is the Rinto blood within you." She turned to look away again.

"My Rinto blood?" Yuusuke said, choking a little on the idea, trying not to laugh. "I _am_ a Rinto. Not a Grongi."

"You are Grongi," the Grongi replied, "at least in part. Else Kuuga's belt would never have called to you."

Yuusuke blinked. "Wait, then... you mentioned crossbreeds. Halflings. You said Kuuga was one of them."

"They would have survived," Ra'Baruba'De said tonelessly, "and bred, watering down their blood with the Rinto. Even so, you are distant kin."

"You know," Yuusuke said after a moment, "if I'm kin, that means so is Minori. And so are they, probably," he added with a nod at the children. "After all, after how many thousands of years we probably all have a little bit of that blood in us."

Her lips parted slightly, but she nodded.

"Maybe," he suggested softly, "you'd be happier if you thought of humans, Rinto, as people too and not just as animals. As prey. Because you're the only one of the Grongi left, and you're going to be living among us for the rest of your life, which might end up being a really long time."

Ra'Baruba'De's eyes widened.

"There was a child," she said, looking back away, not even at the children, but at the crown of the tree they played around. "A girl."

"Yours?" he asked.

She replied with the barest nod, a whisper of movement. She smelled faintly of roses. "The Rinto bound her beneath stone and rope ward." Her eyes were in the distant past. "Bound her into the land and I could hear her scream, but I could not reach her past those barriers. Eventually she grew weak, and one day... I heard her no more."

"I'm sorry," Yuusuke said quietly. "But an eye for an eye... it only leads to two blind people."

"Forgiveness?" she asked with scorn. "Such a Rinto trait."

"Forgiveness isn't the same as weakness," he argued.

She eyed him. "No, I suppose not," she agreed icily, and swept away.

* * *

Ichijou sat at his desk filling out paperwork. Each report and form was filled out in neat handwriting, the work precise, concise, and meticulous, as he'd trained himself to be. It was no guarantee, of course, but a sloppy policeman was marginally more likely to end up either dead or bribed. Ichijou had no interest in being either.

In the top drawer of his desk were a blank set of transfer request forms. He'd gotten them from Mawatari as soon as he'd arrived, earning a strange look from her, and had promptly shut them in the drawer. Not filling them out hadn't kept them from his thoughts, though.

He'd once chided Godai Yuusuke for fighting the Grongi with his heart only half committed, and the adventurer had surprised him by committing wholly to the battle. In the end, the carefree young man who had so little impressed Ichijou on their first meeting had more than proven his dedication, dying twice in Tsubaki's hospital and then nearly a third time before Ichijou had hauled his unconscious body out of that wintery mountain plain. Godai's commitment to a relationship would be no less than his commitment to fighting the Grongi had been. Ichijou could answer in no less than kind. Which meant... Tokyo.

He found he wasn't as bothered by the thought as he should have been. Coming back from the year and more he'd spent in the capitol, Ichijou had felt a bit like a schoolboy trying on an outgrown uniform. Nagano was quieter than Tokyo. In some ways it seemed like it moved more slowly. There was a joke that he'd never understood before which said that the only things to do in Nagano were snowboarding and masturbation. He thought he understood it now. Not that he'd ever particularly engaged in either.

_Boyfriend._

The thought occurred to him and stopped cold the movement of Ichijou's pen. He'd never thought to have anyone to think of that way... never thought he'd make that choice. That anyone would ever be important enough for him to take that chance... it was a strange feeling. A strange realization, that the priorities in his life were beginning to reorganize themselves without his entire conscious control.

He filled out the last line on autopilot and set the report in his out box with numb fingers. He hesitated a moment, then opened the top drawer and pulled out the transfer request forms. He laid them on his desk, smoothing a hand across the papers automatically. He looked at them, took a deep breath, then picked up his pen and began to fill them out.

* * *

Ra'Baruba'De read aloud, keeping the children of the Rinto quiescent. The book was at best inane: a story about a giant man from another world and the giant monsters he battled against to keep the world of the Rinto safe. The story seemed to be a favorite, though, and the children cheered their mythical hero on in what were apparently all the right spots. She found herself comparing the Rinto children to her own lost little one, sealed and starved in stone so long ago. Disquietingly, she became increasingly certain that Kuuga was right and that the Rinto of now were indeed her distant kin.

"Bara-san," one of the little girls, Hikari, asked, "what's wrong?"

"Don't you like Ultraman Tarou?" another, a boy named Shingo, asked.

"It's not that," she replied slowly, lowering the book back to her lap. "I was simply thinking you all remind me a little of my daughter."

"You have a little girl, Bara-san?" they clamored. "Can we meet her? How old is she?"

"She died a long time ago," Ra'Baruba'De replied, remembering dark eyes and vining fingers, the soft voice that had been raised in laughter. The little one had died nameless, barely older than these Rinto children, too young yet to have a name or a rank.

The smallest of the girls, Akane, surprised Ra'Baruba'De by climbing into her lap and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.

It was what her own little one might have done.

"Thank you," Ra'Baruba'De heard herself say. She placed one arm around Akane, awkwardly at first, to steady the child on her lap, and picked up the book again. "Shall we continue?" She didn't pretend that a crystal tear hadn't kissed her cheek as well as the child's lips, or that she didn't see Kuuga's sister Minori smiling at her from the doorway. She may have been guilty of many things, according to the words of the Rinto warrior who was Kuuga's boon companion, but fooling herself was not among her crimes.


	10. Isshou

Chapter 10: _Isshou_ - Together

The PorePore was practically packed. Even with both Oyassan and Nana taking orders, delivering the food, and busing the tables, Yuusuke was having a hard time keeping up with cooking the meals and pouring the drinks. So when he heard Nana's stifled shriek and the accompanying sound of broken plates and glasses, he had no choice.

"Baruba-san," he addressed the former Grongi where she sat silently at the end of the counter, watching as always, "can you take this to table six for me, please?" He set two plates of curry rice on a serving tray, not looking away from Ra'Baruba'De.

She looked at him for a moment, then slowly nodded and stood, taking the tray and wending her elegant way over to the window table, passing Nana where she knelt on the floor, desperately picking up the largest shards of broken porcelain while Oyassan fetched the broom and dustpan.

Turning back to the stove, Yuusuke breathed an internal sigh of relief. No matter what she said about him being the leader of the Grongi now, there had been a very real part of him that had thought she wouldn't accept serving those who had killed her kind. And right now he didn't have the time to fall behind on the food orders.

Fortunately it slowed down after the lunch rush, because Nana had to disappear for a rehearsal for her play. Ra'Baruba'De continued serving the customers without a blink, until finally the crowd thinned enough that Yuusuke was able to handle it all himself. Eventually it was just her and Oyassan left in the restaurant, sitting on opposite sides of the counter, each contemplatively eating a plate of Yuusuke's best curry rice, when the door chime rang again.

"Welcome," Yuusuke called out reflexively, looking up. He blinked. "Ichijou-san?" he asked, surprised.

Ichijou smiled at him. "I hope I'm not too late to order some lunch?" he asked.

"Oh, Ichijou-san, not at all," Oyassan replied. He gestured at the empty seats at the counter. "Have a seat. Yuusuke, why don't you give him some curry? It's particularly good today," he told the detective.

"It is good," Ra'Baruba'De agreed quietly. Yuusuke saw Ichijou's minute hesitation toward her, and noticed that he chose to sit one seat closer to Oyassan than to her. Still, he thought as he dished up rice and curry for Ichijou, it was better than his reaction the last time the two of them had been in the same room.

He set the plate in front of Ichijou, along with a cup of the steaming barley tea he knew Ichijou liked. "Here you go." Yuusuke tilted his head slightly to one side. "What are you doing in Tokyo, Ichijou-san?" he asked curiously. "Are you on a new case?"

Ichijou took a sip of his tea before answering, "Actually, not today. My reassignment request went though faster than I'd expected. I'm apartment hunting." He set the cup back down on the counter and continued, before Yuusuke had a chance to respond, "Of course, apartments in Tokyo are more expensive than back in Nagano. I might have to get a roommate." He was smiling as he asked, "You wouldn't happen to know anyone who's interested, would you?"

Time seemed to slow while Ichijou's offer sank fully into Yuusuke's understanding. Happiness welled up inside him, a rosebud unfolding its tight petals out into full, brilliant bloom. He couldn't help the grin that stretched his face wide in response to Ichijou's own smile.

"I just might," he replied.

* * *

"Well, if I move out, then maybe Baruba-san could have my room and keep helping out here?" Godai asked. "If she doesn't mind, that is," he addressed the former Grongi.

"It is not unpleasant work," she replied quietly.

"I'd still be coming by and working here too," Godai assured Oyassan. "You just wouldn't have to get me out of bed in the mornings."

"No, that'll be someone else's job," the older man replied. "I suppose you'll want a real salary from now on instead of room and board?"

Godai shrugged. "Whatever is fine."

"I can take care of paying for the apartment," Ichijou replied quickly. "That's not a worry."

"Ichijou-san." Godai straightened up from where he was leaning against the counter. "Just a second." He pulled his apron over his head and sprinted up the stairs. Ichijou heard a door open on the floor above the cafe, then close again a minute later as Godai ran back down the stairs. He held a bankbook in one hand and was smiling. He opened it and flipped several pages toward the end before handing it to Ichijou. Who took it and looked at the balance and stopped, stunned.

There wasn't one digit more than he'd been expecting. There were two.

"Godai..." he said, looking up.

Godai smiled at him, but it was a little strained. "Skill number 386," he said. "Financial planning."

Ichijou laughed. "All right," he conceded, handing the bankbook back. "Halves."

* * *

The cafe owner showed her the room that Kuuga called home. The room that might soon be Ra'Baruba'De's own home. The thought was strange, when the word for her called forth images of living trees and vines, a bower tucked away in a meadow... not this small white box. But as she stepped to the window where it let in air, she saw the green vines that clambered the walls of the building. As if to greet her. Her fingers and thoughts lingered on them for a few moments.

"You like plants?" the older man asked softly, stepping up beside her.

"Yes," she replied, looking down at the deep green that almost engulfed her vision. "Most of our kind were bound to animal kin, but the Ra'Baruba'De has always been one of the plant world... the plants that support the animals."

"There's room for a garden out back," he said. "If you wanted. I've never done much with it, Nana and Minocchi aren't too interested either, and Yuusuke's out of the country so often..."

He was trying to be kind, she realized. There was no way he could know the measure of what she had lost, and yet he tried regardless, much like Kuuga. The words seemed alien to her--to say them to a Rinto!--but nonetheless she tried, forming them on her tongue and finally casting them free into the world.

"Thank you."

* * *

He didn't know why, Ichijou thought, steering the car into the apartment building's parking lot, but he'd assumed that Godai didn't have much money. Well, actually, he did know why. The jobs Godai worked at weren't the kind that paid a lot, and to be honest he probably worked where he did more for family than for money. He wasn't materialistic, and both his clothing and wants were simple. But still, Ichijou chided himself, he should have thought about the matter more closely. It reflected poorly on him as a detective not to have considered the price of international plane tickets, or of how much Godai's new bike must have cost. He stifled a rueful laugh.

"Ichijou-san?" Godai asked from the passenger's seat.

Ichijou shook his head as he parked. "Nothing. Just... you always surprise me."

"I'm not the only one!" Godai retorted. "You think I wasn't surprised today? I wasn't expecting you to move back to Tokyo just like that, Ichijou-san. I was really surprised!"

This time Ichijou did laugh a little. "Well, maybe," he admitted. "Shall we go look at the apartment?"

Godai pulled the folded printout the agent had given them out of his pocket and began to read it aloud as they exited the car. "Top floor end unit, two bedrooms, kitchen, bath, living room and balcony, southern exposure, common laundry facilities on the floor..." he listed.

"It sounds promising," Ichijou commented as they waited for the elevator.

Godai folded the sheet back into eights and stuffed it back in his left pocket. "Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?"

* * *

The apartment, as far as Yuusuke could tell, was perfect. He stood in the empty living room and turned around slowly, listening. There was nothing as far as he could hear except the apartment agent's voice coming from one of the bedrooms where she was giving Ichijou the grand tour. Southern sunlight filtered through the slatted blinds that shaded the door out to the balcony. It was still, it was peaceful. Somehow, like the PorePore, it managed to feel like coming home.

He'd examined the kitchen. It was a little bit larger than Ichijou's, even if the counter wasn't open to the living room in the same way. The bedrooms were decently sized, and the bath was suitable for a two-person use if it was needed. Not that he was sure how his and Ichijou's relationship would go, but the thought of relaxing side by side in steaming hot water at the end of the day was a nice one.

Crossing the room, Yuusuke moved back the blinds with one hand and unlatched the door to the balcony, opening it and stepping outside. It was big enough to hang out laundry to dry, and for two futons to be aired out side by side on the railing. Some plants might be good too, he thought... tomatoes or something. Maybe strawberries, if Ichijou liked them. The sky was a bright blue, with only a few clouds. Not too far away a breeze ruffled the trees in a park. He couldn't pick out the roof of the PorePore from here--it was to the north, not the south--but it would be in viewing distance from the roof. An easy ride. And the Police Headquarters weren't much further away, in the other direction, for Ichijou's commute.

Ichijou stepped out beside him, hands coming to a rest on the railing. "What do you think, Godai?" he asked.

Yuusuke looked out into the blue sky. "I think it's the one," he said. "That is," he amended, "if you think so too, Ichijou-san."

"I do." Ichijou nodded.

Yuusuke grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. "Extra lucky for us, then, to find the right apartment on only the third try!"

Ichijou smiled and laughed a little as he leaned forward against the railing but his eyes were serious as he asked, "One bedroom or two?" quietly.

"Ichijou-san..."

"It's... something we'll have to decide sooner or later," Ichijou pointed out. He took a breath. "Godai, I've never..."

"Tsubaki-sensei said so," Yuusuke replied with a slight nod. "I've never dated either, Ichijou-san, but still... one, maybe?" he asked. "We don't have to _do_ anything," he clarified. "And we could use the other room for, well, whatever," he added, mind failing to come up with any specific purpose at the moment.

"A guest room, maybe," Ichijou agreed. "For when my mother comes to visit. She wants to meet you, you know."

Yuusuke's eyes widened. He hadn't considered that. He somehow hadn't even thought Ichijou would have told his mother, except that... no, being who he was, Ichijou would have. It was okay not to tell the police about certain things, maybe, but family was family. Yuusuke laughed a little and looked down. He hadn't even considered maybe having to meet Ichijou's mother. "I'm sorry if she'll be disappointed with me," he apologized. "I know I'm not exactly the type of person a police detective should end up with..."

Ichijou's hand touched the back of Yuusuke's head, fingers threading through his hair. "Godai," he said quietly, and Yuusuke looked up. "She doesn't think you made me this way. She knows you make me happy, and she already wants your recipe for sopapillas. If I ever tell her about how many times you saved my life as Kuuga, you'll never be able to get rid of her. You're fine. You're perfect."

"Like you didn't save me just as many times, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke replied.

Ichijou stifled a laugh. "Partners, then?" he asked.

"Yeah," Yuusuke replied with a nod. "Partners."


	11. Kougeki

Chapter 11: _Kougeki_ - Assault

**Three Months Later**

Yuusuke whistled tunelessly as he headed back to the apartment, canvas grocery bag slung over his shoulder. He still couldn't believe he'd forgotten to pick up daikon earlier and had to run out to get it... this was going to put dinner behind schedule. He hoped Ichijou wouldn't mind.

A commuter train rumbled past as he waited patiently at the crossing, enjoying the end of the day. The heat was slowly leaching away into fall and the days and nights were starting to hold the slightest bit of crispness to them. At least the weather had been good today, he thought, though it was supposed to rain tomorrow. He wondered absently if this had been Ichijou's train and if he should go down the block to the station to check.

As the warning klaxons finally died down and the crossing bars began to rise he blinked, suddenly feeling eyes on him. Ingrained battle senses had him turning to where Yuusuke could _feel_ the gaze coming from, but... there was nothing there but an empty strand of trees in the darkened children's playground.

Unconvinced that he was imagining things, Yuusuke took another, longer, look around before giving it up and crossing the tracks to go home.

As he walked away, a silvery form half fish and half man stepped out from behind the trees and crossed one hand twice in front of the other, then set out after him.

* * *

Ichijou swept his commuter card through the ticket machine and walked out of the small station, thoughts already on home and-- 

"Ichijou-san!"

He turned and found the object of his thoughts coming to meet him at the station.

"Godai," he said, and smiled.

"So that was your train," Godai said, catching up with him as Ichijou waited. "I'd wondered. How was work today?"

"Another day of running around looking for clues," Ichijou replied, not wanting to go into the bureaucratic idiocy that he was too frequently remembering had been the _reason_ he'd gone back to Nagano in the first place. At least the task force to deal with the Unidentified Lifeforms--the Grongi--hadn't been infected by it. The current enemy, though, he privately thought, were being helped more than hindered by the police department's internal political game. But that was work and this was home, he thought, letting the frustration roll away. And Godai deserved better than to have Ichijou's thoughts on such things. "Actually, I was working with Sugita-san and Sakurai-san today," he said.

"Oh, how are they doing? Isn't Sugita-san's daughter having a piano recital soon?" Godai asked.

"Yeah." Ichijou nodded. "I'll ask him about tickets, if you'd like," he offered. Sugita and Sakurai and a few other members of the task force knew that Godai was back in the country. Ichijou had emphasized to them that Godai was no longer able to transform into Kuuga and they'd understood his unspoken, underlying request to keep Godai out of police affairs. They'd all liked Godai and none of them wanted to see him strung up as a guinea pig in the research department. True to form, no one had said a word to the current administration.

It was good to have brother officers you could trust.

"Not that I'm complaining," Ichijou remarked, "but why come meet me at the station?" Godai grinned sheepishly and offered forth the shopping bag he carried. Ichijou looked inside. "Daikon?" he asked.

Godai rubbed the back of his head. "We ran out and I forgot to pick some up earlier," he explained. "I'm sorry, dinner's going to be late."

Ichijou let out a breath of laughter. "Is that all?" he asked. "I get to help with dinner tonight, then."

"But Ichijou-san...!"

The hairs on the back of Ichijou's neck suddenly prickled at the same instant that Godai's words broke off. Ichijou didn't even stop to think and tackled Godai to the ground with his own body just as something whistled through the air where Godai had been standing.

Godai didn't protest, just rolled with it and they both came up kneeling, looking in the direction of the attacker.

"A Grongi?" Godai asked, then immediately answered himself, "No..."

"An Unknown," Ichijou said, gun already out.

"Unknown?" Godai asked, looking at him.

"Agito," the Unknown said in a guttural voice, moving toward them. No, Ichijou realized, moving toward _Godai_... Godai was an Agito.

Of course he was.

"I'll explain later," Ichijou said, pulling them both to their feet, one hand around Godai's arm. "For now, run!"

Godai looked at him for an instant and Ichijou could see the knowledge crystallizing that he was no longer able to become Kuuga, that he was not able to fight this enemy... "Right," Godai said, and ran, Ichijou on his heels, covering his lover's escape even as he fumbled his cellphone out and dialed.

"This is officer Ichijou Kaoru," he reported as they rounded a corner. "An Unknown has appeared..."

* * *

Yuusuke had already decided that he was going to be annoyed at Ichijou for whatever he hadn't been mentioning for the last several months _later_. Because obviously there was another group of non-human enemies, these ones had been kept a secret from the public, and Ichijou knew about them. Knowing Ichijou, it was the state of the Amadam stone in the Kuuga belt that had kept him from telling Yuusuke... 

_So I wouldn't feel guilty about not being able to fight this time,_ Yuusuke knew. _To protect me..._ But now Ichijou had run out of bullets and they'd run out of space and whoever Ichijou had called at the police department hadn't come yet and they were going to die together.

"Ichijou-san," he said quietly. The detective looked at him. "Thank you for everything," Yuusuke said, letting even the irritation go. It was after him, he knew that, not Ichijou. Whatever an "agito" was that this creature was targeted on, it was within him, not Ichijou. "I'm really glad I met you."

"Godai," Ichijou whispered, knowing perfectly his intentions. Godai smiled at him, regretting only this saying goodbye, and stepped forward.

"Not this time," Ichijou said coldly, and moved in front of Godai to take the blow.

It sent him flying into a concrete wall ten feet up with a sickening wet crack, and then he fell, still, to the pavement below.

Yuusuke stopped breathing. "Ichijou-san," he whispered numbly.

No...

This wasn't what was supposed to happen...

Ichijou-san, don't you understand that?

If it kills me, maybe it'll let you go...

Time stopped, and started again in a single heartbeat.

Yuusuke turned to stare at the Unknown. And for the first time in nearly a year he was angry. "How could you?" he breathed. "This didn't involve him." He took a step forward, furious. He could feel it burning through him, like Kuuga's power that he could no longer access. "Whatever you want, he didn't have it..."

The Unknown didn't smile the way so many Grongi had any time they tried to kill Yuusuke. It just raised its hand to strike.

And was rocked back by a hail of exploding bullets as sirens sounded, a police bike pulling up out of the darkness.

Glance snapping to the newcomer, immediately cataloging the bike as an upgrade to the BeatChaser model, Yuusuke's eyes suddenly widened in disbelief.

"Kuuga...?" he breathed.

Impossible...

* * *

Hikawa's shoes seemed to make an echo in the hospital hallways as he found his way to room 418. The overhead lights somehow seemed even brighter at night, like a lie against the darkness. He hesitated a moment before raising a hand to knock. A man's voice called for him to come in, and he did. 

Officer Ichijou Kaoru lay still and pale in the bed, an oxygen mask fitted over his face, a heart rate monitor detailing his condition in soft beeps and line spikes, an IV drip inserted into one arm. Sitting beside his bed was the same man Hikawa had seen earlier. His waving dark hair was pulled back with a tie, and he was casually dressed in running shoes, blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt with a pocket in the front. He held a small sketchbook and pencil in his hands now, though he hastily set those aside and stood up.

"Pardon the intrusion," Hikawa said, bowing. "I'm Hikawa Makoto... I'm very sorry about what happened to Ichijou-san."

The other man's eyes were still on him, and considering. He produced a plain name card case from a pocket and took out a card, handing it to Hikawa with a bow. "Godai Yuusuke. Thank you for your help... you were the one in that armor earlier, weren't you, Hikawa-san?"

Surprised, Hikawa took the card. "Yes," he admitted. "How did you know...?"

The man, Godai, smiled softly. "I have a knack for these things. Let me get you a chair." As he dragged over the room's other chair, Hikawa examined the name card. It read simply "A man who chases dreams. A man of 2000 talents. Godai Yuusuke" with a phone number in the lower corner. Except the "2000" was crossed out, with "2075" written above it in blue ink.

"Thank you," Hikawa said, tucking the card into a pocket as he took in the offered seat. He looked at Ichijou's still figure in the bed. "If I can be so rude... how do you and Officer Ichijou know one another?"

Godai took his seat easily. "We met, mm, a little over a year ago. A year and nine months, maybe? I helped him some with a case he was on, and we became friends. We share an apartment."

"Ah. I'm sorry," Hikawa apologized again.

Godai shook his head. "Well, it's all right," he said. "Can I ask how you know him, Hikawa-san?"

"He took me under his wing last year when I transferred to Tokyo, even though I was on a different team than he was," Hikawa explained. "I was... surprised when he transferred back this year. I'd thought he wasn't intending to."

"Ichijou-san really is such a wonderful policeman," his friend mused, looking down at his interlaced hands. Then he looked back up at Hikawa. "That thing after us... it wasn't one of the Unidentified Lifeforms. He called it an 'Unknown'?"

Hikawa nodded. "They go after people... we have a theory, but no real proof."

"Tell me," the man invited, his voice gentle but his eyes oddly sharp.

Hikawa let out a breath. "We're theorizing they target people with paranormal abilities," he explained, feeling foolish. The evidence seemed to point that way, but saying it aloud to a civilian who didn't have access to that evidence made it sound ridiculous. But Godai didn't laugh, just nodded. That reaction intrigued Hikawa. "Do you...?" he asked curiously.

Godai's eyes widened a little and he waved his hands. "No, no, nothing like that," he said. "It just... you sound like you believe the theory, so you must have support for it, right, Hikawa-san?"

Hikawa reluctantly nodded, a little disappointed. "They also tend to attack family members," he continued. "Do you have any close relatives?"

"Minori," Godai breathed, his eyes widening. "My little sister," he explained.

Hikawa nodded. "We'll assign a couple of officers to shadow her as well as you," he said.

Godai nodded again, and looked back at Ichijou. "Ichijou-san shouldn't have gotten hurt because of me," he said quietly.

Hikawa's attention was caught by the sketchbook where it lay on the bedside table. "May I?" he asked, indicating it.

"Oh, sure," Godai answered, passing it over. "I'm not very good, though," he apologized. "Just an amateur."

"That's all right," Hikawa replied with a smile, and looked.

He stopped, arrested by the image. It was, as he'd half expected, Detective Ichijou, but it certainly wasn't drawn from the scene before him. In the sketch, just a closeup of his face, really, he lay on his side, sleeping. His hair fell softly over his closed eyes. He was smiling just the slightest bit. He was... relaxed.

* * *

Yuusuke watched Hikawa as the policeman studied his sketch of Ichijou. The blue uniform, he thought, was definitely for some special division. An armored forces division, probably, given that armor. It had looked a little bit like Kuuga's Dragon armor, but it hadn't moved like it. The"G3-X" mark on the left shoulder, as well as all the projectile and mechanical weaponry, made it clear it was a kind of robotics attempt at duplicating Kuuga. 

Yuusuke wondered if he was supposed to feel flattered or insulted at the mimicry.

"This is... amazing," Hikawa said, looking up from Yuusuke's sketch. "May I?" He indicated the rest of the book.

Yuusuke nodded a little. "Please, feel free." The sketch of Ichijou hadn't turned out too badly, he admitted, but it was still lacking a certain sense of... something. He'd wanted to capture the feelings he'd had watching Ichijou catnap on the couch one afternoon a few weeks before, but he hadn't quite managed it. He supposed there probably really was no way to catch that peace and happiness between lines of lead and the flat surface of paper.

Hikawa flipped backwards page by page. Past sketches of all the important people in Yuusuke's life, past sketches of the PorePore and the preschool and his and Ichijou's apartment, past sketches of things he'd seen in Mexico and elsewhere. It was like he'd tried to contain his whole life in a few drawings, Yuusuke suddenly thought. He'd just wanted to get the images out of his head, to be able to share them with the people who hadn't seen them with him. He'd even thought Ichijou had liked some of them. He'd filled up almost the entire sketchbook at this point.

"You're quite good," Hikawa said finally, flipping back to the image of Ichijou asleep. He looked at that one again before handing the book back to Yuusuke. "You haven't ever considered becoming a police sketch artist, have you?"

"No, no," Yuusuke denied, waving his hands. "I'm really not that good. My teacher was much better." Hikawa's eyes watched as he flipped the small book shut and stowed it again in his sweatshirt pocket. He decided to take a chance and ask, "Hikawa-san... that armor. Was it based on Ku-- on Number Four?"

Hikawa didn't seem to catch Yuusuke's slip. "Yeah." He nodded. "The design and testing procedure was started in the middle of last year. The project was originally implemented in case Number Four lost in battle, or decided we humans weren't worth protecting anymore." He leaned forward and rested his chin on interlaced fingers. "Rumor had it at the beginning of the year that Number Four had defeated all the Unidentified Lifeforms and then left the country... I asked Ichijou-san, but he would never confirm that for me." His eyes met Yuusuke's again. "There was another rumor that said Ichijou-san had a way of contacting Number Four," he explained.

Yuusuke nodded. "But the police finally developed a way to fight the Unidentified Lifeforms, didn't they?" he asked. "At least, that's what Ichijou-san told me."

Hikawa nodded again. "We did. But the weaponry developed isn't effective against the Unknown. They seem to be another form of life altogether."

"So even if he was here," Yuusuke said softly, "there's no guarantee that Number Four would be able to fight the Unknown."

"I suppose not," Hikawa agreed. "At least there's..." he trailed off.

"Hikawa-san, is it okay if I ask one more question?"

Hikawa nodded. "Certainly."

"What is an 'agito'?" Yuusuke asked.

Hikawa's expression fell and he looked down. "We'd like to know that too." He looked up again. "I'm sorry, I'm not being very much help, Godai-san."

"No, no," Yuusuke denied, "you really did help us out! You saved us from that Unknown, didn't you? So I should really be saying 'thank you,' Hikawa-san! Thank you very, very much!"

"It was nothing," Hikawa refuted, shaking his head. He looked at Ichijou where he lay in the bed. "I should have asked earlier, but... do you know if Ichijou-san will be all right?"

"It wasn't nothing," Yuusuke rebutted. "And... Tsubaki-sensei didn't say. Actually," he corrected himself, "he said 'The man's too stubborn for his own good. This won't kill him either.'" Yuusuke smiled apologetically. "Tsubaki-sensei has known Ichijou-san for a long time."

"That's... good to hear," Hikawa said, but he looked dubious. "I should take my leave," he continued, standing. "It's been a pleasure to meet you, Godai-san. I wish it had been under better circumstances."

"No, the pleasure's been mine," Yuusuke replied, standing as well and bowing. "Thank you for being concerned about Ichijou-san."

"It's good that he has such a close friend who's worried about him," Hikawa replied. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, though, and turned back toward Yuusuke. "Godai-san... do you really think that Number Four has left Japan?" His eyes held a seed of hope. "Ichijou-san hasn't said anything to you, has he?"

Yuusuke hesitated before answering, "If he was here and able... I'm sure that Number Four would be fighting the Unknown with you, Hikawa-san."

Hikawa nodded once. "Then, please excuse me," he said, and left the room.

Yuusuke sighed and sat back down. "You should have told me about the Unknown and that armor, Ichijou-san," he chided quietly. He reached over and took Ichijou's hand between his. "You should wake up soon, so you can still tell me."

* * *

In the darkest hour of the night, when the hospital was quiet and still, a woman in a long white dress walked slowly down a hallway toward a room whose door was flanked by two police officers. As she reached them, she extended a hand out. The horn-shaped ring on it glowed softly and the two men slumped back against the wall, their eyes sightless. Quietly, she opened the door and walked inside, closing it again behind herself. 

There were two beds. One was empty; the man in the other was hooked up to all sort of equipment and monitors. In a chair between the beds was another man, his eyes closed and body relaxed in sleep. The woman paused for just a moment, looking at him, then proceeded to the occupied bed. She examined the occupant dispassionately, holding a hand briefly above his body before moving it back again.

Wordlessly, she began to disconnect the machines from him.

Dark eyes fluttered opened and struggled to focus on the white form above him. A broken whisper, barely more than a breath, said "Go...dai..." but was not able to escape the oxygen mask on the man's face.

Still silent, the woman plucked even the mask away, then extended her hand above the man again.

His world went white, and then was no more.


	12. Kishi

Chapter 12: _Kishi_ - Revival

"-dai. Godai." Between the voice calling his name, the light but steady shaking of his left shoulder, and the crick in his neck Yuusuke found his way to consciousness again, blinking muzzily against the light.

"'ch'jou-san?" he mumbled.

Dark eyes looked into his. "Godai."

Sense snapped back into sudden focus and Yuusuke sat up straight so fast their heads nearly knocked together. "Ichijou-san!" Ichijou put a steadying hand on his chest, which considering that Ichijou was the one still in hospital robes, didn't seem quite right. "You're awake?" Yuusuke asked. "You're better?!"

"Yeah," Ichijou replied, slowly sitting back on the edge of the bed. "Somehow..."

"'Somehow'...?" Yuusuke asked suspiciously.

Ichijou looked up at him. "What do you remember happening?"

The world stopping when you threw yourself in the way, Yuusuke wanted to say, but didn't. He'd always cared, but he'd never realized that the thought of losing Ichijou, of losing _anyone_, could be something that felt like that. He never wanted to feel like that again. He took a breath, trying to find the right words instead. "You stepping in front of me," were the most neutral that he could find. "Then... that G3-X armor showed up." Ichijou's eyes widened. "You really should have told me about that, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke chided softly, trying to distance himself from the memory of that one moment of realization that seemed like white noise blanketing his heart. "You should have told me about a lot of things."

Ichijou's mouth thinned and he looked away. "I didn't want you to feel guilty, or responsible," he replied. "Not when there was nothing you could do. And... the Guardian armor series wasn't complete and working in time to help against the Grongi. I didn't want you to feel like we hadn't been trying our hardest to back you up."

"I met Hikawa-san," Yuusuke said. "He came to see how you were doing. He seemed like a good man."

"He is," Ichijou confirmed. "He's a little naive, but very passionate... very idealistic. He reminded me of you a little when I first met him."

"Really?" Yuusuke asked. "He reminded me of _you_." Ichijou looked back at him, surprise on his face. Yuusuke smiled. "Passionate, idealistic, and very much wanting to be a good police officer and do the right thing," he said.

"Godai..."

"I'm not mad, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke said. "But you should have told me."

Ichijou took that in, considered it, and finally nodded. "I should have, you're right. I'm sorry, Godai."

"There are... others?" Yuusuke asked. "He said something that hinted at that."

Ichijou nodded. "Two others that we know of. They're called Gills and Agito."

"You think they're humans like me, who can transform?" Ichijou nodded again. "Is that why the Unknown called me Agito?"

"I don't think so," replied Ichijou. "That is, I don't think it was mistaking you for him. I think... I think an 'agito' is a person with special abilities, or a certain potential."

"Hikawa-san said something about psychic powers," Yuusuke reported dubiously.

"That's the current theory."

"But I'm not--" Yuusuke started, then stopped, remembering how he'd gotten flashes of the Kuuga armor before he'd ever even put the belt on. "Maybe... a little," he said dubiously. "I'm not sure if it counts, though."

"I think being Kuuga certainly counts as a special ability," Ichijou replied.

"I guess."

"Skill number two thousand?" Ichijou reminded him.

Godai had to breathe a laugh of agreement. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Nothing else happened, though, last night?" Ichijou pressed.

Godai shook his head. "I fell asleep--" The memory of a dream occurred to him. "I dreamed... Baruba-san asked me to make a choice."

"A choice?" Ichijou's voice was neutral, almost making Yuusuke look up in suspicion, but he ignored that impulse, trying to sort the dream fragments into something more clear and linear.

"She said she could heal one," Yuusuke remembered, troubled. "Either the Amadam stone... or you, Ichijou-san."

"Me?"

Yuusuke looked up and smiled. "It was an easy choice. There may be other people in the world who can fight the Unknown," he explained, "but there is only one you, Ichijou-san."

* * *

Ozawa Sumiko reviewed the data with sharp eyes, searching for any flaws in either her creation or her command. She couldn't afford to let anything slip, or that insufferable man Houjou would-- She forced herself to take a breath, count to five, and release it before returning to her rapid scan of the numbers. Facts and figures, reality broken down into little pieces that made it all so much more comprehensible. Pure science, unsullied by human interference.

She looked up, though, as one of her subordinates entered the G-Trailer. She smiled at Hikawa, who was as always immaculate and cute in his uniform. He was definitely better to have around than that other man, and while he didn't have Houjou's brains, she was far more appreciative of what Hikawa did have--a pure heart. "So, how was he?" she asked. "Your sempai."

Hikawa blinked momentarily before nodding. "Thank you for asking. It seems he's made a full recovery and been discharged already."

"As to be expected of Officer Ichijou," Omura remarked from his terminal. "It's good to hear that he's still living up to his reputation."

"Yes." Hikawa took a seat. "I was really glad to hear that. His condition didn't look too good last night when I was there. His roommate took him home, though, and there are two officers keeping an eye on them, as well as more keeping an eye on Godai-san's sister."

"Kind of surprising, though," Omura remarked. "I mean, to have an Unknown attacking a policeman's roommate..."

"Officer Ichijou Kaoru," Ozawa said, eyes back on her screen as she divided her attention, "age twenty-seven. Born in Nagoya, raised in Nagano, son of a policeman killed in action, later joined the force himself. Distinguished career record, sent to Headquarters when the task force to combat the Unidentified Lifeforms was formed. One of the leading officers in the defense against them, was rumored to have a way of contacting Number Four. Returned to Nagano in March of this year, then moved back to Tokyo in June, shortly after the return to the country of current roommate and Unknown target Godai Yuusuke."

Omura and Hikawa were looking over her shoulders at the secondary screen detailing this information. Ozawa paged down. "Godai Yuusuke, age twenty-six. Born in Hokkaido, raised in Yamakita City in Kanagawa Prefecture, parents deceased, one younger sister Minori. Holds a series of menial jobs, mostly at the PorePore Cafe in the Bunkyou ward, between frequent extended trips out of the county. _Very_ frequent," she emphasized. "Most recent trip was to Mexico, from January fourteenth through June fifth of this year. The one before that was to Indonesia; he returned to Japan on January thirtieth of last year." She looked up at her subordinates expectantly.

"That's a lot of trips out of the country," Omura said, staring at the admittedly rather impressive list of destinations. "Are we sure he's not a drug runner?"

"Him?" Hikawa asked. He shook his head. "He's not the type. Though he doesn't seem the type to be Ichijou-san's roommate either," he admitted.

Ozawa huffed in irritation and highlighted the January 30th, 2000 and January 14th, 2001 dates. "You can't tell me these dates aren't significant to you two."

They blinked back and forth, not a clue batting between them until Hikawa's eyes slowly lit up. "Those are just before and after the first and last dates of sightings of Number Four!"

Omura leaned back. "That's pretty coincidental," he commented.

Ozawa glared at him in annoyance.

"You don't think it's a coincidence, do you, Ozawa-san?" Hikawa asked slowly. Omura's eyes widened in comprehension.

"He's Officer Ichijou's roommate," she pointed out. "What do you think, Hikawa-kun?"

"But... if he's Number Four, wouldn't he be fighting with us?" Omura asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Hikawa-kun, you met him."

"I think..." Hikawa paused, then continued, "He said that if Number Four was here and able to fight, he thought he'd be fighting along with us."

Ozawa nodded, absorbing those implications. "So if he is Number Four, he may not be able to fight, for whatever reason," she said, and swiveled her chair back to look at her information. "Still, he may know something."

"You think we should question him?" Hikawa asked.

She nodded absently. "I think we should do it secretly." She didn't miss the glance Hikawa and Omura exchanged behind her back.

* * *

They still didn't have any daikon.

Yuusuke looked at the fridge's contents in mild perplexity, then rearranged the menus in his head and began to pull out what vegetables they did had. Stir-fry for lunch, he thought... with rice and miso soup and maybe some pickled vegetables, it shouldn't be too unpalatable. He could always run to the store later, with the police officers shadowing him, and pick up some more daikon then. He absently began to combine ingredients for a sauce for the stir-fry, wondering if this was what normal people had felt like while the Grongi were attacking. At least he'd been able to do something about them. This time he was helpless.

"Godai."

He looked up at Ichijou, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" his partner asked softly.

Yuusuke looked back down at what his hands were doing. They seemed almost disconnected from him as they moved on autopilot, combining things in a small bowl, mixing them into a thin slurry of pale brown. "Why did you do that, Ichijou-san?" he asked softly. "It would have killed me and left you alone..."

"That's why," Ichijou replied, his voice equally quiet. "You've... already sacrificed so much, Godai. I couldn't let you do that this time. Not to save me." He hesitated, then added, "I didn't want to be alone, without you. I couldn't live like that anymore."

Something inside Yuusuke snapped. He quietly set down the chopsticks he'd been using to combine the sauce. "So it's okay," he whispered, "to leave me alone instead?"

And there must have been something in his expression as he looked up, because Ichijou whispered "Godai..." in a tone of comprehension.

"What I was thinking," he said lowly, moving toward Ichijou, "was that we were both going to end up dead unless I let it kill me first. If I let it kill me, at least you'd still be alive." He reached Ichijou, who refused to retreat as Yuusuke advanced. "Do you really think I could've lived with myself, knowing you'd done that, if you'd died?" he demanded.

"How do you think I could have lived, letting you die in front of me without doing anything?" Ichijou demanded in reply.

Yuusuke caught his partner's hand, pinned it against the door frame. "If I died, Ichijou-san, I'd've wanted you to live knowing that there was someone who cared enough to want to give you everything," he bit out, somehow on the verge of tears. "That I loved you enough to want you to live--" And then his throat closed up and he couldn't force any more words out.

"Godai..." Ichijou whispered. Then, "Do you think I care any less?"

Mute, Yuusuke shook his head.

"If anything happens to me, ever," Ichijou said quietly, "I want you to keep living. I want you to know that I cared enough to make a home with you, that I never loved anyone more than I loved you, that... that you were the most important person to me. And that I'm so glad to have met you."

Yuusuke choked a breath. "Don't do that again," he demanded, letting Ichijou's hand go. "Not for me. Never for me."

"Only for you," Ichijou promised, both hands catching at Yuusuke's sweatshirt, tugging him closer. Yuusuke let his forehead rest on Ichijou's shoulder, his eyes closed against the tears behind them.

"I was scared," he said, his breath ragged, his own hands clenching in Ichijou's shirt. "When I thought..."

"So was I," Ichijou admitted, his breath warm against the back of Yuusuke's neck. He took a breath, let it sigh out. "I can't promise it'll never happen again, Godai. All I can promise is that I'll try not to die."

Yuusuke had to accept that, nodded in understanding, and finally looked back up at Ichijou. "Thank you," he said. "For that, and... for saving my life."

Ichijou smiled just a little. "It was my turn." And carefully wiped away the traces of Yuusuke's tears with his thumb.

* * *

Normally having one police officer inside his cafe and an unspecified number more lurking somewhere outside would have made Tamasaburou feel like the PorePore was the safest place in Japan. Unfortunately, the day didn't seem to be proceeding according to normal circumstances, and so he ended up feeling nervous instead.

Yuusuke sat at the counter of the empty cafe as the rain thrummed down outside, sandwiched between Ra'Baruba'De and Detective Ichijou. He held a pencil in one hand and was rapidly sketching in the book before him. The detective watched with interest, the woman pretended not to, and Tamasaburou was just thankful his niece was at rehearsal and out of the way of being collateral damage to anything that might happen.

"Done," Yuusuke said, and set down his pencil. He turned the book so that Ra'Baruba'De would have a clear view of the sketch.

She looked at it and turned white, starting to sway and hyperventilate as shock and fear rewrote her face.

"Baruba-san!" Yuusuke said, putting a stabilizing hand on her shoulder while Tamasaburou fumbled behind the counter for a glass to pour water into. The detective half-stood from his chair, ready to catch her if she fainted. "It's gone," Yuusuke said. "It's gone, the police took care of it. I saw it explode."

She shook her head. "It has come... he has come..." And then her words dissolved into a spate of incomprehensible terrified syllables, probably the Grongi language. Tamasaburou set the glass of water on the counter before her, and covered one of her hands with his own. "Ra'Baruba'De," he said forcefully, addressing her by her full title. She looked up at him, fear in her eyes. "If it can be dealt with, the police will deal with it. If it can't," he said, "then there's no point in being afraid of what will come. Fear only paralyzes us."

Slowly she nodded, then picked up the cup with both hands, childlike, and sipped at the water within. Her shoulders were still tense beneath Yuusuke's hand, and she still looked fearful... but at least she was no longer panicking.

* * *

They knew nothing, so she had to begin at the very start of time. "There was light, and there was darkness," Ra'Baruba'De said softly, "and their shape was like those we were created in, for they were our creators." She looked into the past, into the dark eyes of the one who had been Ra'Baruba'De before her, the eyes of her mother's mother, and remembered the history she had been taught. "The darkness created the Grongi, and those we would come to call the Rinto, and any other tribes there may have been of which we did not know. And we were ignorant as the beasts, and as savage. And the darkness and the light were also savage in their hatred of each other, as were their natures, and warred in an eternal battle, attempting to destroy one another."

"What happened?" the Rinto warrior, Ichijou, asked her.

"The light had realized that being equal and opposite, neither could overwhelm the other," Ra'Baruba'De recounted. "Instead, he found a way to cripple the heart of the darkness. He spent himself in a rain of stars that fell upon humanity, taking our simpleness away. He changed the beloved creations of the darkness, implanting the seed of himself in each, corrupting us away from our savagery. We became... aware. We became civilized. We knew the potential for godhood in each of us, and became hated by our creator for it. In pain, he sealed himself away, leaving us only with his promise of vengeance, to someday return us to the pure beasts he created us to be."

"Why did that make the light the winner?" Ichijou asked. "If the light was dead, then surely..."

Were the Rinto so divorced from the world they lived in, Ra'Baruba'De wondered, to not understand the simplest answers? "Seeds," she said succinctly, "grow."

"What is an 'agito'?" Kuuga asked her.

She smiled. "In the Rinto language... an adult. An awakened seed. One who has the knowledge of self, and of that seed of light that was bestowed upon them, the facility of that shard of godhood... the star stone embedded in Kuuga's belt is one. You are an Agito, and so am I."

Kuuga slowly nodded. "And that?" he asked, indicating his drawing with a gesture. Ra'Baruba'De looked at it, then looked away, suppressing a shudder.

"A Beast Lord," she answered quietly. "The messengers of the darkness, as promised and prophesied, foreshadowing his return, his reclamation of the seeds of light... their destruction... our destruction." She closed her eyes. "He will destroy all that the Rinto have managed to build, his heralds shall murder, one by one, all those who bear the seeds, until civilization is a wasteland and all those who remain are but the wild things he created us to be."

"Angels of destruction," the cafe owner said into the silence. "The end of days."

"But the police were able to destroy it," Kuuga said, sounding puzzled. "As long as they can do that with all the rest, then we should be okay, right?"

Ra'Baruba'De opened her eyes, weary of living in fear and hatred and opposition. "His messengers may be destroyed," she told Kuuga, "but the darkness itself? You pit yourself against a god. Even were you able to assume Kuuga's form again... it would be impossible."

"I didn't make the wrong choice, Baruba-san," Kuuga replied. He smiled a little. "The world is a big place, bigger than I ever imagined when I started exploring it. Somewhere in it there's got to be something that can stop a god, and... if what I've heard is correct, there maybe already is."

"Godai," Ichijou said. "We don't know..."

Kuuga's smile widened, and he placed a hand over his companion's. "Have faith, Ichijou-san," he chided. "If I could defeat Daguba alone... and there are three of them up against this... it'll be all right. It will."

Ichijou stared down that face of optimism, and was reluctantly defeated. "If you're sure," he said. Then he smiled a little. "You are, after all, the 'agito' here."

Kuuga grinned and gave him a thumbs-up, and the cafe owner, who reluctantly returned it with a smile as well, and Ra'Baruba'De, who finally nodded and looked away.

As the leader of the Grongi... if he asked her to have faith and not live in fear... she would try her best to obey his wishes.


	13. Rikai

Chapter 13: _Rikai_ - Understanding

By the time the phone call came, tearing him away from the tea and snack Tsugami had so cheerfully brought out to the table in the family room of Professor Misugi's house, Hikawa was once again frustrated to the point of anger, and almost welcomed the appearance of an Unknown. He didn't know how, but somehow Tsugami Shouichi always managed to get under his skin and pick at Hikawa's weakest spots and excel in them himself. Somehow, he didn't know how, it always ended up in some kind of competition that Hikawa lost...

He forced his thoughts away from the cycle of anger and frustration at his own limitations, and proceeded to suit up. He was mostly sure that the amnesiac Tsugami (and who even knew if that was the man's real name) didn't do it on purpose. They... were just good at different things, that was all, Hikawa reassured himself. There had to be something he was good at that Tsugami wasn't. Surely.

"Mind on the job, Hikawa-kun," Commander Ozawa snapped.

"Of course," he replied, mind instantly back on the task at hand. She handed him the G3-X's helmet and he put it on, taking as always just a second to get used to the visual display while the helmet closed around his head. He headed for the G-Chaser bike, ready to move out.

* * *

If you stared long enough into the darkness, Yuusuke believed, eventually you'd find the light in it. Similarly, if you spent enough time in adrenaline-filled fights, sooner or later you found your center and lost your fear, like a long-distance runner hitting the wall and shattering it on the way through. He looked into the silver-mirrored eyes of the Beast Lord that was trying to kill him, and smiled.

Then he turned and ran.

As expected, as planned, the creature followed him. His feet pounded on the pavement as Yuusuke used senses he hadn't possessed two years ago--and the fact that he still had them, despite being unable to transform, he thought, surely meant _something_--and dodged projectiles, weaving back and forth in a serpentine pattern as he ran. Morning runs with Ichijou flashed through his mind, as did runs up Mayan pyramids and the view from the top, looking over the deep green jungle out at the blue sky...

He rounded a final corner and, as planned, dodged between the police cars there, the officers closing rank behind him, springing the trap, as he got to his bike.

The concentrated gunfire wasn't enough to destroy the monster, but it did slow it down slightly as he watched.

"Godai," Ichijou--one of the marksmen--shouted to him, "ride!"

"Right," he replied, nodding, and revved his bike to life. The fish-creature turned to watch as he rode away and, ignoring the policemen, it followed.

He didn't open the throttle all the way, keeping in mind the second part of the plan. He needed to let the creature follow him until--

Flashing lights pulled up beside him and Yuusuke grinned, looking over at the G3-X armor. "Hikawa-san!"

"Godai-san," the armored officer replied.

"Where do you want to fight it?" he asked.

He could practically hear Hikawa's shock in the hesitation that followed. His reactions weren't those Hikawa was expecting from a civilian, he supposed. "Follow me," the officer said, and sped up slightly, taking the lead.

* * *

They ended up in a wooded area with no other civilians around. Godai led the Unknown around the woods once while Hikawa braked his bike to a stop and pulled out the GX-05 gun, unlocked it, and unfolded it into shape. He listened, tracking the sound of the other bike's engine, and then Godai Yuusuke was back in sight, a silvery shape following him... Hikawa sighted on that shape and opened fire. It was already slowed somewhat from the exertion of the chase and the bullets the other officers had spent on it earlier. The GX-05's bullets were special armor-piercing rounds, based on and adapted from those Enokida Hikari had developed to fight the Unidentified Lifeforms. In a concentrated stream, they were just enough to eventually penetrate the Unknowns' defenses and kill them.

As though he knew this, like they'd had a plan set out beforehand, Godai Yuusuke stayed out of the line of fire and circled around Hikawa, his bike fishtailing to a neat stop among the shed leaves on the forest floor. He didn't shut his engine off, though, didn't dismount, ready to lead the Unknown around the woods again if necessary.

There was no way he was a civilian, Hikawa thought as the Unknown finally hesitated, shuddered, and then fell in an explosion. He breathed a "ha" of satisfaction, listening to Ozawa and Omura's congratulations, then turned to face Godai Yuusuke. He set the GX-05 on the back of the G-Chaser and removed the G3-X's helmet. Godai had removed his as well, shaking out his hair briefly and smiling at Hikawa.

"That was really impressive, Hikawa-san!" he said enthusiastically. "I can see why the police department depends on you."

"Thank you," Hikawa replied automatically. "Godai-san... you are Number Four, aren't you?" he asked.

Still astride his bike, helmet held in both hands, Godai Yuusuke smiled beatifically at Hikawa, and Hikawa couldn't even begin to read all the layers he knew had to be present in that smile. "Well, maybe," he admitted.

* * *

She'd been right, Ozawa thought with a small smile of triumph. Out of the barest data facts and an unconfirmed rumor, she'd correctly figured out the identity of Number Four. Even that posturing snake Houjou didn't know who he was...

"This information goes nowhere," she ordered, glancing right at Omura.

"Ozawa-san!" he protested, and she could hear the plaintive unspoken _Don't you trust me?_ in his voice. She just stared at him until he reluctantly nodded, then turned her attention back to her screen. He thought she didn't trust him, but she did. She trusted Omura Takahiro to be exactly what he was--loyal, and middling clever, but not as bright or determined as Hikawa. She trusted both of them, but while Hikawa, unbound, would take a secret like Godai Yuusuke's to the grave with him, Omura wouldn't be so cautious. She needed his promise.

She wouldn't let Houjou and those like him get their hands on Godai Yuusuke. He'd been the one she'd based the Guardian armor on, and while she'd known that Doctor Enokida had _had_ to have known who Number Four was, the woman's research had been clinical and not hinted at all at his identity. No one, in fact, who'd been involved with the fight against the Unidentified Lifeforms would say a word on the subject.

Someone who inspired loyalty like that... Ozawa had to respect such a person.

She pulled up a database. Quickly dialing a number into her cellphone, she waited until the person on the other end picked up. "Detective Ichijou? This is Ozawa Sumiko, of the G-Unit. I thought you would like to know that your roommate and Hikawa-kun took out the Unknown."

He was silent for a moment. "Godai is all right, I trust?" he asked eventually.

She gave him a code to input into his standard police radio. It was one of the locked frequencies that was specific to the G-Unit's activities. Then she hung up.

"Why did you do that, Ozawa-san?" Omura asked.

She didn't bother looking at him. "Because the conversation will be more interesting this way," she replied simply, and opened communications. "Hikawa-kun, I've given Ichijou-san the code for this channel."

* * *

There was one more Beast Lord, Yuusuke knew. He'd seen it out of the corner of his eye as Hikawa had destroyed the second one. One moment it was there, watching, the next it had slipped away behind a tree and was gone. He supposed that meant that this operation wasn't over yet, and mentioned as much to Hikawa, who seemed to have an embarrassingly high opinion of Yuusuke that he didn't think he deserved. On the other hand, he could easily see why Ichijou liked Hikawa and had mentored him after he'd transferred to Tokyo. Hikawa's sincerity was stunning.

"Another one?" Hikawa said, eyes open wide. A flash of dismay crossed his face. "That's..."

"Three," a woman's voice said crisply over the G-Chaser's radio. She'd been introduced as Commander Ozawa Sumiko, the designer of the Guardian armor and head of the G-Unit team. And she'd already figured out that Yuusuke was Kuuga, even before he'd confirmed as much to Hikawa. "Not unheard of--some of the other Unknown have had packs of the same number."

"The Grongi mostly came singly," Yuusuke admitted. "The--" he hesitated, mentally swapping words he rightly shouldn't have a source for with ones he did "--Unknown work in groups?"

"Generally two each," Hikawa said with a nod.

Yuusuke groaned. "Ichijou-san..."

"You weren't involved," Ichijou's voice came over the bike's radio from his location in his car. "You can't transform anymore, Godai--you shouldn't _be_ involved."

"Say that when I'm not a target, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke rebutted. "I'll believe you then."

Ichijou's silence spoke eloquently, to Yuusuke at least, of his disbelief.

"In any case," Hikawa said, "we'll simply have to keep a police detail on you until--"

His words faded out and Yuusuke's eyes widened. The PorePore unfolded before him in grainy black and white, like a picture on an old television with the sound busted. Baruba and Nana and Oyassan were setting the tables while Minori stirred the pot of curry sauce behind the counter, Yuusuke's Kuuga apron on her, and there, outside the window, framed by rose bushes, was a silvery fish-faced figure--

"Godai-san?" Hikawa asked, breaking Yuusuke's vision back to reality.

"It's not going after me," he said, "it's going after Minori and Baruba-san. Ichijou-san, they're at the PorePore!" And he grabbed his helmet and ran to his bike.

* * *

Following Godai's lead with the lights of the G-Chaser flashing and its sirens wailing, Hikawa knew their theory had been right. The Unknown were definitely targeted on psychics, and Godai Yuusuke--Number Four--Kuuga--was one of them. It had been a breath-taking shock when Kazaya Mana had closed her eyes and read the numbers of Hikawa's driver's license from across the room to convince him, but when Godai's eyes had gone wide and he'd stared unseeing, unbreathing for just an instant, chills had pricked up the back of Hikawa's neck. Mana was human, just a schoolgirl, but for all that he had Detective Ichijou's trust, was Godai really human anymore? Even if he wasn't able to transform into Number Four...

No.

The fear cleared itself swiftly from Hikawa's mind. He'd seen too many human emotions in Godai's eyes the two times he'd met the man. Sorrow, and affection, and worry, for a friend. A steady concentration, and then appreciation of a job well done. Humor, which was supposed to be the best indication of humanity, and humility despite all he'd done. And then--fear. Not for himself, but for those he cared for.

No wonder he was Number Four. Kuuga. Someone like that, who cared so much for the people around him, who ran off to rescue them without a thought even though there was nothing he could do...

Hikawa suddenly felt very small and selfish.

* * *

Ichijou had a bad feeling.

Godai was one of the most centered people he'd ever met, and after a while of watching him fight in the Kuuga armor, Ichijou had had the idle notion that somehow his forms were related to that balance. The fire of the Mighty form, the water of the Dragon form, the air of the Pegasus form, and the stone of the Titan form--they were all four of the classic elements, held in perfect balance inside Godai. He could shift easily from one to the next, holding on to nothing, a wise man like a bodhisattva, knowing that clinging to things was empty and the cause of needless suffering...

And like that Buddhist saint turning back from nirvana, Godai worked to save people. To protect people's smiles. Especially the smiles of those most dear to him. But Godai was human, and could be pushed too far. There were certain things that once threatened were almost guaranteed to push him that far. Ichijou knew he was one. And Godai's family, his sister and the people he'd adopted as surrogate kin... they were another.

The phone rang endlessly on at the PorePore as he listened to his cellphone, other hand on the wheel, dread and horror sinking lower into Ichijou's stomach with each ring. There were very few reasons no one would be answering the phone, and given Godai's insight, none of them were good.

_Please,_ Ichijou thought, hoping they could all get there shy of disaster, _please let them be all right..._

* * *

It was silent as Godai rode up.

He distrusted silence, maybe even hated it. Not the silence of an empty room, or of a meditation, but the darker silence that spoke of slaughtered children, broken dreams, cries of terror cut off--

The last time he'd heard this silence, there had been bodies being consumed by flame, and a dark smile on the face of a youth in white.

The front of the PorePore looked like a war zone, soot-blackened, bricks blasted out of place, windows shattered. If the neighbors had been at home, they were either cowering in their rooms, praying the Beast Lord would not descend upon them, or fled.

Quietly, Yuusuke set the kickstand of his bike down and dismounted. Behind him, for all that he seemed a thousand miles away, Hikawa did the same, the G-Chaser's sirens cut off mid-wail. And behind him, even further away though somehow he seemed closer, Yuusuke heard a car door close as Ichijou exited his vehicle.

The silence weighed Yuusuke down. It made it hard to breathe. He didn't want to go inside the PorePore, didn't want to see what he knew would be there--

A scream cut the silence.

"Minori!" he said, and ran. He knew his sister's voice, and that had been it, and she wasn't inside, she was in the gardens behind the restaurant--

She, if no one else, was alive.

And he would save her.

* * *

"You will not have me," Ra'Baruba'De spat at the Beast Lord, slipping back into the language of her people. "Not me, not them. You will not take us--I defy you and the Lord who created you!" Under her control, ivy vines bound the creature, trapped it. It burst free. The rose bushes she had planted sank deep teeth into it, drawing blood like ichor. It tore them free and threw them away. A storm of petals rose, blinding, slicing razor-sharp. It walked through them. Behind her, Kuuga's friends and family scrambled back, ran. Not fast enough, she knew. Never fast enough to outrun this, the creature from the end of days who would kill her and then them--

--she would see her little one again, surely--

"No!" she hissed. "She is dead and gone, and I am alive. I _will not succumb_...!"

And then she didn't have to, as Kuuga appeared, his allies behind him, and tackled the Beast Lord to the ground. "Run!" he yelled at her as the creature struggled briefly beneath him. "Baruba-san, run!"

"Godai!" the Rinto warrior yelled, raising his weapon high, aiming for the Beast Lord. And another beside him--

Baruba stared at the blue and silver form that looked so much like Kuuga. So much like N'Daguba'Zeba.

"Baruba-san, run!" Kuuga yelled at her again, and she gathered her wits about her and obeyed.

At least as far as the garden gate, where she stopped on the other side, and watched, unable to leave.

* * *

Godai and the Beast Lord struggled, and Ichijou wasn't able to get a single clear shot. He watched as they traded close combat blows, kicks, knees to the stomach, tackling one another into the ground of what had once been a nicely kept garden.

Then he stared, involuntarily lowering his rifle, as phantom red began flashing around Godai's limbs.

"What the--" Hikawa asked, his own gatling gun dipping momentarily.

"Godai," Ichijou breathed.

How often had Godai managed to pull off the impossible?

But... the stone was broken. Ra'Baruba'De had healed Ichijou rather than the stone, at Godai's choice. How...?

The Beast Lord seemed intent on savaging Godai with its teeth and claws, biting needle-sharp into the armor as Ichijou raised his rifle and sighted along it again. A claw swiped across Godai's cheek before the armor could protect him there, leaving an arc of blood dripping down his face in its wake.

Ichijou could hear Godai's gasping for breath beneath the feral growls of the Beast Lord, and felt his pulse beat in time to that ragged rhythm. Finally, with a cry that held more than a little anger and anguish, Godai managed to force the armor to completion--it stopped ghosting around him and snapped into a too-familiar solid red shape.

The Beast Lord paused, as if surprised, and that was all Godai needed to finally land a good, solid punch to its face. As it reeled, he grabbed its arms and spun around, placing it solidly between himself and Ichijou and Hikawa. "Ichijou-san! Hikawa-san!"

Ichijou didn't hesitate, merely re-sighted on the Beast Lord's head and fired. Hikawa took a moment longer, but then opened fire as well.

The pinned Beast Lord shook with the artillery going into it--please let it not be going _through_ it, Ichijou pleaded to any gods that might be listening--until it finally exploded, causing Ichijou to flinch away from the force of the explosion, shielding his face from the heat and light with one hand.

Instantly he turned back to look. "Godai!"

Godai stood there, alone, in the blackened smoking soil where he'd held the Beast Lord for them. His armor was smooth, uncreased by bullets. Ichijou breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Godai collapsed.


	14. Hogo

Chapter 14: _Hogo_ - Protection

The armor vanished before Godai even hit the ground.

"Godai!" Ichijou yelled, sprinting over to his fallen friend, rifle clutched in one hand--never ever drop your weapon--and dropping to the ground beside him.

"Godai-san!" Hikawa was right behind him as Ichijou set the rifle down and rolled Godai over, half pulling him upright, frantically taking his pulse. Godai couldn't be dead, not now, this couldn't happen--

There was a thin pulse, thready and weak but there, and Ichijou sighed in relief. Godai had just pushed himself too far again...

A white hand hovered above Godai's chest, then drifted south over his stomach. The horn-shaped ring on that hand glowed softly, and Ichijou looked up to see Ra'Baruba'De kneeling in the dirt with him on the other side of Godai, her eyes closed. "Baruba-san?" he asked.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "He has changed."

Hikawa took off his helmet. "Changed?" he asked.

She looked up at the officer in armor. "He has reached beyond the stone in Kuuga's belt to what truly powers it, and forced it to become part of himself. Now it will never be worn by another. Now it is his." She looked back at Ichijou. "Now he is an Agito."

"He'll be all right, then." That, more than anything, was Ichijou's concern. Who cared if Godai was an Agito--what mattered was that Godai was alive, and himself.

She nodded. "He will sleep the long sleep, and then awaken." Her hand, the ring no longer glowing, drifted to touch Godai's cheek. The cut there was closed like it had never been, and dried blood flaked off the unmarked skin onto her fingertips as she looked at Godai fondly.

"The long sleep?" Ichijou questioned, needing to understand.

"A season, perhaps a bit more," she answered. "It was always such, when the star stones were truly made part of us." She smiled at Ichijou, and he thought he'd never seen her look so approachable... so human. "He will be himself," she assured him. "As human as he ever was."

"He'll be all right?" Ichijou questioned, needing to confirm that.

She nodded again. "Yes. He will be fine. I swear it."

Ichijou sighed in relief.

Hikawa was looking back and forth between the two of them from where he now knelt in the dirt too, the G3-X's helmet tucked under one arm. "Who are you?" he asked Ra'Baruba'De.

Her eyes widened slightly as Ichijou watched. "I am..."

"She's Akagi Baruba," Ichijou said smoothly. "A distant cousin of Godai's. A friend." He smiled slightly at her. "And these days... something of a healer."

Her lips were parted slightly in startlement, but she nodded.

Ichijou supposed this meant he'd forgiven her for what she'd done, protecting her from the police like this. Still, he supposed, she deserved it.

"Onii-chan!" Minori appeared at the gate and scrambled into the wreck of the garden, dropping to her knees beside her brother.

"Yuusuke!"

"Godai-san!"

Oyassan and Nana followed Minori's lead.

"He's all right," Ichijou assured them. "He just needs to sleep for a few months."

They all stared at him. Minori was the first to recover. She smiled and breathed a soft laugh. "Well, if that's all," she said, and touched her fingers to Godai's hair. "That's so like you, Onii-chan." She looked back up at Ichijou. "I'm expecting you to take good care of him, Ichijou-san!"

Ichijou smiled back at her and laughed a bit himself. "Well, I'll do my best," he said, echoing Godai himself not a little.

* * *

The MRI revealed that the belt was... gone. Or not so much gone as simply absorbed. Ichijou thought about that as Tsubaki flipped through the pages of printouts. It meant that in the future they wouldn't be able to rely on modern machinery to check up on Godai's condition. They'd have to rely on Godai's own intuition, and Ra'Baruba'De's knowledge.

He glanced at the woman, sitting beside him. She'd cleaned up after the fight, washing clean her hands and face in one of the hospital's restrooms, brushing her hair back into its simple coiffure that somehow managed to look more complex than it actually was. She looked back at him. "'Akagi'?" she asked simply.

"It was the first thing that came to mind," Ichijou replied. "Red for your roses, a tree for nature."

She nodded. "It is acceptable."

"I thought you couldn't use your powers any more," he felt compelled to say.

Her eyes were on the X-Rays. "Some are gone. I may not transform, and no longer can I create plants out of my own being. But to manipulate those which already exist... that, your weaponry could not take from me. As mastery of his elements may now never be taken from Kuuga. Even should he be pierced by the same weapons with which you injured me, warrior."

He didn't apologize. Neither did she ask for it.

"Well." Tsubaki broke the silence between them. "His pulse is roughly one-third of what it should be. His breathing's equally shallow. And you're saying this will last a few months?"

Ra'Baruba'De nodded. "He will require neither food nor drink, merely a guarded place to sleep until he wakes. He will be unable to defend himself until then."

Tsubaki dropped his head into one hand. "You do know that comatose people normally don't have to worry about defending themselves, yes?"

Her gaze was level. "The Beast Lords will hunt down those with the seeds of being Agito within them. He now has more than simply a seed."

"That may be so," Ichijou replied, "but once a group of Beast Lords have been defeated, the subsequent groups haven't sought out the original targets. They shift their aim to others."

Dark eyes widened. "If they are created keyed to specific bloodlines..." It took a moment, then a small smile slowly curved her lips. She looked at Ichijou. "Then the Dark Lord may not have thought his plans through. He may be defeatable."

"Just what are we talking about, here?" Tsubaki asked with a sigh.

"Nothing," Ichijou assured him. "Just the end of the world."

Tsubaki stared at him, then dropped his head back into a hand, fingers massaging circles at his temples. "I swear... he's rubbing off on you, Ichijou. Your twisted sense of humor is coming back."

"I thought you liked my sense of humor," Ichijou jibed.

"I liked your piano playing," Tsubaki returned. "Your sense of humor was always lacking."

The door to Tsubaki's office opened and Sawatari Sakurako stepped inside. "Shuuichi-san," she started, then stopped, seeing Ichijou and Ra'Baruba'De. "Ichijou-san? Baruba-san?"

"Sawatari-san," Ichijou greeted, standing.

She stepped inside the office, closing the door behind herself. "What are you doing here--" she started, then cut herself off. "It's Godai-kun, isn't it?" she asked quietly.

Ichijou reluctantly nodded.

"What's happened this time?"

Tsubaki reached out and shut off the light box. "He's absorbed the belt. According to Baruba-san, he'll be comatose for a few months while his body adapts to it."

"I'm sorry," Ichijou apologized, though he didn't know quite what he was apologizing for. But Sawatari was one of Godai's closest friends, and he felt he owed her an apology for... for not being able to keep Godai out of police business again, at the least.

She huffed out a breath of long-suffering exasperation. "Honestly. Godai-kun keeps doing this!" she declared. She turned to the doctor. "Shuuichi-san, what room is he in?"

"Three-eighteen," the doctor replied. "The usual."

"Right." She turned to go. "I'll be visiting him, let me know when you're ready to go."

Ra'Baruba'De stood, the full skirts of her gray dress falling around her ankles. "I will accompany you."

After the two women left the room, Ichijou turned to Tsubaki. "'Shuuichi-san'?" he inquired mildly.

"Don't you start," the doctor growled at him.

* * *

Their apartment ended up feeling too big when there was only one person in it. Ichijou ended up spending most of his free time at the hospital instead, sitting in the uncomfortable chair by Godai's bed while working on paperwork, or reading the newspaper, or even, once or twice, working his way through a book. Godai's slow, soft breathing was reassuring, as was the gradual pace of the pulse monitor. The room wasn't completely private--other patients cycled in and out as the hospital needed the space--so Ichijou usually kept his voice low while keeping up a one-sided conversation as the year wore on to its end. Neither Tsubaki nor Ra'Baruba'De knew if Godai heard anything while in this coma, so Ichijou thought it just as well to keep him apprised of events, in case somewhere deep inside Godai was listening. When he chanced to run into Godai's other frequent visitors--Sawatari, or Minori, or Oyassan or Nana--he found them doing the same.

Maybe, Ichijou thought bemusedly, everyone was just so used to talking with Godai that they couldn't stop even when he couldn't talk back.

He kept Godai apprised of the efforts against the Unknown, and shared station gossip with him. When there were no other patients sharing the room, he even puzzled his way aloud through his non-Unknown cases. Like he'd done sometimes before, while awake, Godai helped him find ways to look at the cases with fresh eyes.

"I know it's all in my head, and you're asleep, but thanks, Godai," Ichijou said quietly, brushing Godai's messy black hair back from his closed eyes one evening. He looked up to see Nana standing there, a dark sweater layered over her shirt and skirt for warmth, looking at him. "Nana-san," he said, standing. "Good evening." He hadn't heard her come in.

She was still looking at him. "Is something wrong?" Ichijou asked.

"Ichijou-san," the young actress started, "by any chance are you and Godai-san...?" She left the end of her sentence ambiguous.

He couldn't lie to her, to Godai's friend and part of his extended family. "Yes," Ichijou said quietly with a slight nod.

She took a step closer toward the foot of Godai's bed. "You and Godai-san are... all love-love?"

"...Yes," Ichijou answered again, with another nod.

She looked down at Godai for a moment and Ichijou waited to see what she'd say. Her fingers drifted across the foot of the bed as though she was in thought. Finally, she looked up again.

She was smiling.

"Well, if it's Ichijou-san, that's all right," she said, and Ichijou breathed a sigh of relief. "But!" She held a warning finger up in front of Ichijou's face. "If you make Godai-san cry, all bets are off!"

With a smile, Ichijou nodded again. "I won't make him cry, I promise."

"Then." She looked at Godai. "And, Godai-san, you're not allowed to make Ichijou-san cry either! Because he's almost as cool as you are." Her only answer was the machine's soft beeps, but that seemed to be enough for Nana because she turned back to Ichijou. "Uncle said that if you were still here I should tell you to go over to the PorePore already and have some dinner."

Ichijou laughed softly. He somehow felt relieved that the self-proclaimed "Number One Member of the Godai Yuusuke Fan Club" wasn't objecting to their relationship. Things could have been awkward if she had. He wasn't Godai, didn't have the right words to defuse that kind of situation. "He sent you to fetch me?"

"Mm-hmm." She nodded vigorously, causing her ponytail to bounce. "If Godai-san's not feeding you, he doesn't trust you to be taking care of yourself, I think." She latched onto Ichijou's arm.

"I've fended for myself for years," Ichijou protested mildly.

"You're turning down the dinner _I_ helped make?" Nana asked pointedly.

Ichijou had a sense of self-preservation. "Of course not. I'm just saying that I've never lived on junk food and takeout, even before Godai and I moved in together."

"Who said you did?" she asked, leading him from the room. "Come on, I'm supposed to collect Tsubaki-sensei too."

"He'll be in his office," Ichijou replied, and turned right out of the room's door, leaving the light on behind them, in case Godai should wake.

In this way, at the hospital, at the PorePore, at police headquarters, and at their apartment, the weeks came and went. Ichijou found himself slowly absorbed more and more into the embrace of Godai's extended family, beginning to feel like they were maybe his as well. Time somehow seemed in suspension, though, days running together like the raindrops of the autumn storms as calendar pages slowly turned. Ichijou wondered if this was what it would feel like when Godai went off adventuring again, as he eventually surely would. Every day passed a little more slowly for not having someone at home at either end of it, and only a phone call away in the middle. Every night he closed his eyes, having looked at where the other futon _ought_ to be laid out, and waited for that person to wake again.

* * *

It was not the sound of his alarm that woke Ichijou, but something less definable, a sense that something was off. Blinking muzzily, he rolled to his feet, the cool air of the bedroom washing over him as he rose. He slid the door open silently and padded down the hallway toward the living room. He stopped short, though, at the kitchen door.

Bopping his head in time to unheard music, Godai poured milk into a bowl and, picking up a whisk, began to quietly beat its contents.

"...Godai," Ichijou breathed.

Godai looked up and smiled breathtakingly at him. "Good morning, Ichijou-san. Did you sleep well?" he asked. Wordlessly, feeling slightly stunned, Ichijou nodded. "That's good," Godai replied. "I hope hot cakes sound okay for breakfast? I woke up in the hospital and I was really really hungry, but hospital food never seems very filling, so I came straight home instead."

Ichijou nodded slowly, leaning just a little bit against the door frame. "Tsubaki's never figured out that's why I always try to leave the hospital as soon as possible."

"That's not true," Godai rebutted, grinning. "You're just a bad patient, Ichijou-san. You're impatient."

"And you're not?" Ichijou returned, falling into their patterns like no time had passed. Like it was all normal and the last several months had been a dream...

"Well, maybe," Godai admitted. His smile slowly faded and he stopped stirring the batter for a moment. "Ichijou-san, how long was I in the hospital for?"

Ichijou didn't have to follow his gaze to know Godai was looking at the calendar on the wall beside him, its page turned to December. "Three months," he replied quietly.

Godai nodded slowly. There was something stark in his eyes... dismay at the time he'd lost. "What day is it?" he quietly asked.

"Christmas Day," Ichijou answered.

Godai breathed a soft sigh, then seemed to force himself back into his usual cheer, looking back up at Ichijou. "At least I didn't miss Christmas," he said.

Ichijou nodded.

Godai looked back down at his bowl of batter. "I suppose hot cakes aren't very Christmasy," he mused. He looked back up, grinning. "I'll just have to make something better later today," he promised.

Ichijou laughed softly. "Welcome home, Godai."

"I'm home, Ichijou-san," Godai replied.

* * *

Three months. One moment it had been September and he'd been fighting the Beast Lord in Ra'Baruba'De's garden, somehow forcing the Kuuga armor to appear again... and the next, it seemed like, he'd woken up in a hospital bed. That in itself hadn't been so surprising, and he'd found his clothes in a locker by the bed, rail pass and keys tucked into one pocket. It had still been dark and he hadn't wanted to disturb anyone, so he'd just gone home, sneaking in quietly because it had been too early for even Ichijou to wake up. And then, in the kitchen, starting to make breakfast for the two of them, he'd seen the calendar and frozen.

December.

Not September, December.

Then Ichijou had woken up and appeared in the kitchen and confirmed the date, and Yuusuke felt strange, knowing that he'd lost three months. That he'd been lying in that hospital bed worrying everyone for that long... He busied himself making breakfast, and around the time he was flipping the first hot cake onto a plate, Ichijou reappeared, dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, but no jacket or tie.

"You're not working today?" Yuusuke asked, surprised. He ladled more batter onto the skillet, swirling it into a perfect round.

"I took today off," Ichijou replied.

Yuusuke nodded. "Did you have anything planned?"

Ichijou leaned against the door frame and smiled a little. "I'd thought I'd spend the day with you."

"Even though I was still asleep in the hospital?"

"Yes," Ichijou answered.

Yuusuke smiled softly, warmed, and looked back at his cooking. "Thank you, Ichijou-san."

Ichijou straightened. "I have a present for you."

Yuusuke's eyes widened and he looked back at Ichijou. "But... I don't have anything for you!"

Ichijou smiled, and there was something quiet and happy contained in his gaze. "You're awake," he said simply, as if that was enough. He held out a small green-wrapped box. "Merry Christmas, Godai."

"But," Yuusuke protested weakly, setting down the spatula and accepting the box.

Ichijou hitched up the cuff of his right sleeve slightly, revealing a familiar gleam of silver beneath. "It's my turn to give you something," he said, and Yuusuke had to concede the point with a smile and a soft sigh.

"Can I open it now?" he asked, holding the small box up.

"Please."

He slit the tape open with a fingernail and unfolded it from around the box, setting it temporarily on the counter. Then Yuusuke raised the box's lid to reveal a gleam of gold coming from inside.

It was his Kuuga mark cast in gold, a pendant on a matching chain.

He looked up at his partner, surprised. "Ichijou-san."

"You have it on everything else," Ichijou said. "But I'd never seen it on one of your necklaces, so I had it made. I... hope it's all right?"

"It's perfect," Godai said, and meant it, taking the necklace out of the box, setting the box on the counter, undoing the clasp.

"Let me," Ichijou said, stepping forward, taking the ends of the chain. Yuusuke bowed his head slightly, letting Ichijou's fingers brush through the hair at the back of his neck and reconnect the chain there. Ichijou's body heat felt so warm, so close to his.

"Thank you," Yuusuke said, looking into Ichijou's eyes.

There was something strange in Ichijou's gaze as he withdrew his hands. It was something intense and... needing? "You're welcome," Ichijou said, his right hand pausing, thumb brushing across Yuusuke's cheek, "Godai... Yuusuke."

Yuusuke's breath caught at the touch. They were close... so close. "Ichijou-san..."


	15. Nakama

Chapter 15: _Nakama_ - Comrades

Ra'Baruba'De methodically polished the cafe's windows while behind her Tamasaburou cleaned the tables. They worked together in a companionable silence; the Grongi woman had, in recent months, become less stiff and frozen, even going so far as to smile once in a while, though he'd yet to hear her laugh. It was, he thought, like watching winter melt into spring. Her stained-glass beauty became even more lovely as she'd stopped being afraid of modern humans, of the Rinto who had replaced her people.

Still, that didn't mean he was going to let her cook in the cafe. The two times he'd let her try, the results had been disastrous and it had taken hours for the smell to air out, even with the windows and doors all open.

She returned to the counter, placing the cleaning products in their bucket to go under the counter, and looked up, meeting Tamasaburou's eyes. "He has awakened," she said simply.

"...'He'?" Tamasaburou asked, and straightened. "You mean Yuusuke?"

She nodded once and reached over to stir the coffee bubbling merrily in its pot.

"How do you know?" he couldn't help but ask.

"He is the leader of the Grongi," she replied. "The Ra'Baruba'De will always know of the N'Daguba'Zeba... whether or not Kuuga has chosen to claim that title." She finished stirring and straightened, looking back at Tamasaburou. "His awakening does not please you?"

He shook his head and bent back down to finish polishing the last corner of the table. "No, it's not that. It's just sometimes you and he seem a little strange, with those powers."

"Inhuman, you mean?" she asked, crossing the room to stand near him.

"Well, maybe a little," Tamasaburou confessed, looking at his work.

"He is... not inhuman," she said consideringly. "And by that standard, neither am I. We are simply both what humans are on their way to becoming again. Rinto into Grongi; the awakening of the Agito in the human race." Her dark eyes were on him. "What your children may become."

He looked up at her. "I don't have any children."

"Why do you not?" she asked, expressionless.

He looked away a little, remembering. "The woman I would have married... married someone else." And he'd buried that hurt away, trying to be happy for the both of them. And eventually when he'd seen how happy they were together he'd managed it. By the time she'd been widowed, his love for her had changed into another kind of love altogether, so he'd never asked again.

"Who was she?"

He laughed a little, looked back at her. "Yuusuke and Minocchi's mother."

Her expressionlessness changed a little, shifted. He couldn't quite read it. "And you pine for her still?"

He smiled, shook his head. "As a friend, not as a lover. Not anymore." He sighed. "She was a good woman..."

"And... if there was another good woman?" Ra'Baruba'De asked.

Tamasaburou shook his head. "I'm too old now."

"And I am older," she said simply.

Time seemed to slow, stretching out in strange ways as he stared at the Grongi woman, feeling like a fool as realization dawned across him.

* * *

"Ichijou-san," Godai said quietly that evening, leaning against Ichijou on their sofa, a blanket draped cozily over the both of them as a concession to the cool, damp weather outside. 

"Yes?" Ichijou asked. He was in a still, quiet, happy place, which was a little odd to contemplate, seeing that being with Godai had put him there and still and quiet weren't terms he would usually apply to Godai.

"The Unknown are all gone, aren't they?"

Ichijou nodded slightly. "We haven't seen any in weeks."

"Then... would you come with me, Ichijou-san?" Godai asked.

"Where?"

"Adventuring."

Ichijou must have stiffened slightly, or looked surprised, because Godai sat up a little and looked earnestly at him. "I won't ask always, Ichijou-san, and it's okay if you say no," he reassured. "I just thought that I'd ask you."

The idea of going on one of Godai's adventures seemed strange to Ichijou. Strange but... intriguing. "Where to?" he asked. "And when?"

"I was thinking Australia," Godai said with a big smile. "Maybe after New Year's?" Then his face fell. "No, that wouldn't work, you don't have a passport, do you, Ichijou-san..."

"Actually," Ichijou said mildly, "I do."

Godai blinked, surprise scrawling across his face. "Why do you have a passport, Ichijou-san?"

"It seemed like a good idea," Ichijou replied, smiling slightly. "Especially knowing you."

"Ichijou-san!"

"Australia..." Ichijou rolled the concept around in his head. It would be summer there. Warm. "I do have some vacation time saved up. How long did you want to go for?"

"Well, if it's me I don't buy a return ticket until I'm ready to come home, but with you... a month, maybe?" Godai's expression betrayed that the time seemed ludicrously short to him.

Ichijou laughed a little. "I can take a month off," he agreed. "And... Godai," he said seriously. "Whenever you go adventuring... I'll be here waiting when you get back."

* * *

**Two Months Later**

"Tell me what we're doing here again?" Ryou muttered as he and Tsugami followed the uniformed Hikawa down one of the sterile hallways of the Police Headquarters Division.

"Well," Tsugami started blithely, "um... actually, why are we here, Hikawa-san?"

Hikawa stopped and looked at the both of them with vaguely disguised impatience. "Because my superior asked for a meeting with me and the two of you."

"Why did we agree to this?" Ryou muttered. Cops were the last thing he wanted in his life. They were nothing but trouble.

"Because you're upright citizens who have nothing to fear from the law?" Hikawa asked pointedly, then turned and continued leading them deeper into the bowels of the building.

On the rare moments when Hikawa grew a spine, Ryou mused, he might almost like the man.

* * *

The meeting room door was ajar as the three of them approached, and Hikawa was surprised to hear laughter emanating from within. Not that police lacked a sense of humor, but while on the job most of his colleagues tended to stay dignifiedly sober. A policeman's work was seldom anything to laugh about...

"--wasn't the one who almost got us arrested, Ichijou-san!" a voice Hikawa knew protested. He straightened, eyes widening in surprise.

"Arrested?" An unfamiliar man's voice. "This I've got to hear."

"It was a hostage situation, and the Australian police needed help. We were there." Another voice Hikawa knew, and a hostage situation he knew nothing about, if Australians had been involved.

"So _after_ we took down the terrorists, the police came in and thought _we_ were the terrorists!" Godai Yuusuke continued.

"We straightened it out eventually," Detective Ichijou Kaoru protested. "I had my badge, and your English is better than mine."

"You had a badge, yes--" Godai retorted.

"Aren't you three a little old to be eavesdropping?" a woman's voice spoke loudly from behind Hikawa and his companions. All three of them jumped and spun.

"Ozawa-san!" Hikawa said, surprised.

"Hikawa-kun," she greeted him. "Tsugami-san, Ashihara-san," she continued with nods as them. "Well, shall we go in and get this meeting started?"

"You're invited to this meeting as well, Ozawa-san?" Hikawa asked.

"What's it about?" Tsugami asked.

"I _am_ the designer of the G-series armor," she replied acidly, in the tone that always meant "use your brains." And she stepped through their group and pulled the door open, going through. Exchanging glances with Tsugami and Ashihara, Hikawa followed her lead.

* * *

Assessing the group in the room, Ryou began to wonder more and more why the hell he was at this meeting. A medical doctor, a police science doctor, two archaeological doctorate students, another police detective, a woman who was so beautiful she was almost scary, Ozawa and Hikawa... he and Tsugami were the only normal people in the room. Or so he thought until the one guy he hadn't yet been introduced to broke away from Ozawa and Hikawa and came over to him. 

"We haven't been introduced yet, have we?" the man asked, friendly and cheerful. He produced name cards out of a pocket and handed one each to Ryou and Tsugami. "I'm Godai Yuusuke." He bowed slightly.

"I'm Ashihara Ryou," Ryou replied, bowing a little in return.

"Tsugami Shouichi," Tsugami said too. "A pleasure to meet you, Godai-san."

"No, no," Godai rebutted with a grin. "The pleasure's mine."

"You're not with the police, are you?" Ryou asked.

Godai shook his head. "No, I just helped them out a little sometimes. It's not very much." His hand was behind his head, but he looked back up at Ryou almost shyly. "You're... both Agito, aren't you? Gills and Agito, I think Ichijou-san said?"

"...And if we were?" Ryou responded guardedly.

Godai's smile was wide and genuine. "Then I'd be glad to meet someone else who was."

Realization sunk in like a stone through water and Ryou could feel his eyes widen, defensiveness melting away in surprise.

"You're an Agito as well?" Tsugami asked excitedly.

Godai nodded. "Though we didn't know to call it that until late last year." A hand rested on his shoulder and he turned to look at its possessor. "Ichijou-san?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt," the detective said with a nod of apology, "but we do need to start the meeting."

"Of course!" Godai said with a grin. He looked at Tsugami and Ryou. "Shall we find seats?"

* * *

Shouichi found himself seated between Ashihara and Godai, the three of them Agito making a spectrum along one side of the round table. With Hikawa on Ashihara's other side, he thought, it really was like they were an Agito group. 

The police detective who had called the meeting to order sent a stack of documents around the table. As they passed from hand to hand, the stack getting shorter with each transaction, he started talking. "Thank you all for coming. I realize that not all of you have worked formally with the police in the past, so if you have any questions at any point, please ask. What we're presenting to you today is just a rough plan to be hammered into shape." The doctor sitting next to him snorted, already flipping pages. Detective Ichijou ignored the man and went on. "The existence of Agito is not yet public knowledge, but there is no way that it won't become so soon. We of the police department want to anticipate public and political reaction to this change in the human race, and present an example that can be used to show that Agito and normal humans can peacefully coexist and augment one another's abilities for the better." The stack reached Shouichi and he took one, passing it along to Godai.

The top page read "Agito Group."

"The document that all of you should have is an outline for a proposal I and the police department would like to make to you," Detective Ichijou said quietly. "In order to prove that there should not be any legislation against Agito, we want to form a combined task force, comprised both of normal humans and Agito, with appropriate specialist support staff on as many levels as possible, to deal with any menaces that may come up, whether of extreme human, Agito, or alien origin." His cool eyes swept around the table. "We may have months or even years when we're not needed. We may not. I... hope," he said, and suddenly sounded just slightly less sure of himself, hesitating, "that all of you would be interested in being part of this. Please. Because Japan needs this, and in a changing world... humanity may need this."

Shouichi looked at the cover page, touched his fingers to the title. It was the name he'd made up for himself and Ashihara and Hikawa and Kino. For Mana, with her psychic powers, and Majima, who'd given up his chance to become an Agito in order to help Ashihara... all the people who'd fought with him for the last year.

But did being an Agito mean he had to give up the rest of his life too? To be in the police...

"This would only part-time work for all of us, right, Ichijou-san?" one of the doctoral students asked, the Japanese woman. She looked worried. "Jean and I both have our theses to finish still..."

The detective nodded. "Part-time only for everyone," he confirmed, "at least until we know to what extent we'll be needed."

"It would be an on-call situation," Ozawa confirmed. "Everyone on the task force would be issued pagers as well as police I.D.s. As with regular police work, there would be no telling what time of day or night you might be called in for a case, either."

Hikawa was nodding. Ashihara wasn't. "Why would we want to do this?" Ashihara asked bluntly. "My last year was hell. I'd rather not repeat it, if no one minds."

"Page four," Ozawa said crisply.

Godai flipped to it, then looked up quickly. "Ichijou-san," he said in a tone that sounded like a protest.

The detective was smiling at him in an implacable way. "Chief Matsukura felt it would be a good idea to pay everyone for work already done. In most cases, that means a year's back pay or so."

Shouichi stared at the neat columns with names and figures. Godai's was the largest amount, but his and Ashihara's were listed right underneath and weren't that much smaller. He touched fingers to the number by his name.

"Tsugami?" Ashihara asked, sounding concerned.

His teacher had had to sink his entire life's savings into it to open a restaurant. Shouichi hadn't thought he'd be able to do the same thing, to follow that dream, for years, decades, if in fact ever. "I could open my own restaurant," he said quietly, so that only Ashihara and Hikawa, and, he supposed, Godai, could hear him. "If I said yes..."

* * *

"There are... less tangible benefits than money, as well," Ra'Baruba'De spoke quietly. She looked at the two Agito sitting beside Kuuga. "Healers, both myself and others. Knowledge, of what you are and what you may become. Legal protection, if necessary. Maintenance for your modes of transport." She had been one of the few to whom Ichijou had confided his plans. He had desired her to be a part of this endeavor since his inception of it, and had arranged her pardon and an identity for this modern Rinto world from his superiors in exchange for her participation. 

The younger Agito snorted. "Like I need someone to fix my bike."

She stood and walked to stand behind his chair. He half-turned to face her. She held a hand before his face and then his chest, reading his body. "You were an incomplete transformation, at first. It caused you much pain." She could feel the old ache, the scars and the long time of cold. She smiled at him, mocking all that he thought he knew. "Among my people you would have been culled as weak. But another gave from himself to complete you. The Agito within you is dual; the nature of what he could have become, melded with that which you had already become."

His eyes were wide, staring at her. So were the eyes of the policeman sitting beside him.

"I was an Agito, once," she told him. "All my people were. And now they are no longer, but the seeds grow within modern humans. I can tell you what you are, and what is yet to come. Value this knowledge as you will." And she turned and went back to her seat, satisfied that her point had been made.

* * *

"Godai-san," Hikawa asked eventually, while others were making plans about information databases and how to diagnose injuries by either conventional or mystic means, "can I ask when you recovered?" 

"Recovered?" Tsugami asked, looking at Godai.

"Yeah," Hikawa confirmed with a nod. "The last time I saw Godai-san, he was in a coma."

"Well, just at Christmas, actually," Godai said with a smile. "Ichijou-san and I left the country just after New Year's, though, and went to Australia for a while, otherwise we both would've helped out with that last battle of yours. I'm really sorry we weren't here."

"Australia?" Ashihara asked.

Godai shrugged a little, grinning. "I'm an adventurer. And Ichijou-san surprised me by agreeing to come with me this time!"

"Godai-san is Ichijou-san's roommate," Hikawa felt obliged to explain to the two Agito.

Tsugami looked up from the document consideringly at Godai. "Godai-san, no offense intended, but... I know why these numbers are next to my name and Ashihara-san's. You weren't there fighting beside us last year, though."

"That back pay number for me isn't for last year," Godai said quietly, "at least not mostly. It's for the year before that." He frowned. "I just know Ichijou-san had something to do with this," he muttered.

Ashihara and Tsugami both blinked, looking clueless. Hikawa took pity on them. "Godai-san is Kuuga," he told them. "Number Four."

Tsugami's eyes widened slightly. "You're--"

"Why the hell didn't you help us last year, then?" Ashihara hissed angrily. "I died last year. Fucking twice, and got my powers stolen, all of us did, while you sat back and didn't do a thing--"

"I died twice fighting the Grongi," Godai cut in quietly. His face was tense, and sad, and one hand on the table fisted, then opened flat. His gaze was steady. "At the end of things I lost my ability to transform, and to fight. I left Japan for a long time and when I came back I still couldn't, even if I'd known what was happening. Ichijou-san didn't tell me anything until one of the Unknown targeted me. I was able to force a transformation to protect my sister and friends--and I ended up in a coma for three months." He paused. He hadn't raised his voice once but the three of them were utterly silent. There had been something raw and powerful behind his words, a self-knowledge that was irrefutable.

"I'm sorry," Hikawa said finally, at the same time that Tsugami said "We didn't know." Ashihara didn't apologize, anger still twisted with helplessness on his face.

Godai nodded softly, the pain washing out of him, transmuting into something else. "I am sorry that I was not able to fight alongside the three of you last year, Ashihara-san," he said quietly. "I would have done my best, if I'd been able... if I'd been here, or known. I'm not that kind of person." He picked up the report. "I will accept Ichijou-san's request to join this team... not for money, and not for political benefit, but because it's the right thing to do." He looked at the others arrayed around the table, talking in twos and threes, and smiled softly. "This is some of the team I worked with when we were fighting the Grongi. They're my friends, and I want to support them as best I can. I want to make sure they can continue to smile. So for them, I'll fight again."

* * *

Yuusuke had known that Ichijou had been planning something from almost the day they'd gotten back from Australia. He'd been distracted at home sometimes, and it hadn't been concerning any particular case--Yuusuke had asked. He'd ended up biding his time when Ichijou hadn't told him what he was working on, figuring that if it was important enough or relevant, Ichijou would tell him eventually. 

He wondered how much the terrorists in Australia had contributed to this idea of Ichijou's. He hadn't transformed into Kuuga, hadn't needed to, but it had been a close thing for a few seconds. How much had that incident had made his lover want to give him some form of legal police protection for future incidents? Because Yuusuke knew that this proposed task force was entirely rooted in Ichijou's need to protect others. He was protecting Ra'Baruba'De with this, and more distantly Minori, but most especially he was protecting Yuusuke. Which made Yuusuke feel warm and made him care for Ichijou even more, if that was possible, but also made him realize a cold twist of fear that there was something that Ichijou felt he needed to be protected against like this.

Foreign prisons were one thing; Yuusuke had never done anything to be jailed for in his life, and would have been released eventually. Scared people making laws against him for being different...

He suddenly understood maybe a little better why Ichijou didn't want anyone at his work to know certain things.

He knew he'd say yes, of course. There was no way he could say no; if there was something he needed to defend people against, he would do it, whether it was an enemy trying to kill them, or a politician trying to make laws against them without even knowing them. And if it became too much again, if it was killing everything inside Yuusuke... Ichijou would understand that he needed to leave again for a time, to find the blue sky again somewhere in the world. They'd talked about it on a beach in Australia. Ichijou was a policeman, and Yuusuke was an adventurer. It would do neither of them any good to deny where their hearts were, and who they were.

_"I'll always come back,"_ Yuusuke remembered promising. He touched fingers to the Kuuga pendant that Ichijou had given him, and smiled.

_"I'll always be waiting," Ichijou had replied._

_Godai had shaken his head, smiling softly. "You can't promise for always, Ichijou-san."_

_"Yes, I can," Ichijou had refuted. "Anything less isn't worth promising."_

"Kana-san... my girlfriend," Tsugami said suddenly. "She's an Agito too. And so was my sister."

"My sister isn't," Yuusuke replied. "But... she could be. She has the potential too, Baruba-san says. And even if she never becomes an Agito... her children might, someday."

"You can't live your lives fighting for other people, either of you," Ashihara argued. "It's meaningless."

"Then fight for yourself, Ashihara-san," Hikawa retorted sharply. "After all, if that kind of legislation passes, you're the one it affects."

"Like hell," Ashihara retorted. "The only people who know I'm an Agito are in this room. And my old swim coach," he amended. "And... an ex-girlfriend..." His voice trailed off, losing certainty.

"Even so," Yuusuke felt obliged to point out, "do you really want to spend your whole life hiding what you are, Ashihara-san?" Ashihara looked up at him, eyes sharp. Yuusuke smiled, he hoped not unkindly. "None of us should have to be ashamed, or to hide from unjust laws, not if we've done nothing wrong," he said. "If this is a way to prevent that, for myself, for you and Tsugami-san and his girlfriend... and for other people who don't even know what they are yet..."

Ashihara just looked at him, then turned to glare at Hikawa. "I'm going to make you regret ever dragging me to this meeting," he promised lowly.

Tsugami laughed and clapped Ashihara on the shoulder. "Welcome to the team, Ashihara-san!"

* * *

Ichijou didn't quite relax all the way at Tsugami's friendly laughter, but he admitted it went a way toward assuring him that his plan might work after all. 

"They'll all join," Ozawa told him. "Even Ashihara-san. They're not the type of people who can say no to something like this."

Ichijou nodded. It still weighed on him, though, that he'd sprung his offer on Godai like this, with no advance warning. "If you say so, I'll have to believe you, Ozawa-san."

"Honestly, Ichijou-san," Sawatari chided, "did you think any of us would say no?"

"It's not like something like this has been attempted before," he protested mildly. "Asking civilians for help is one thing, deputizing all of you into a task force and putting you on the police payroll is another."

"I'm still surprised you managed to get the police department to agree to having me on this team," Jean commented with a smile. "The Japanese police not being the most willing to hire foreigners," he explained.

"Oh, some of us might have put in good words for you," Doctor Enokida teased him.

"If they were willing to make an exception for me," Ra'Baruba'De said quietly, "then it would make no sense to deny you a similar opportunity."

"In the microcosm, yes," Jean argued, "but in the macrocosm, modern Japanese aren't always that comfortable with non-Japanese. And unlike me, you at least look the part."

"So are you interested?" Ichijou asked Tsubaki.

"Am I interested in the chance to study the new yet old evolution of the human species, he asks," the doctor replied, leaning back in his chair. He raised an eyebrow at Ichijou. "I do seem to remember you being intelligent enough to graduate high school. Have years of shooting guns rattled out your remaining brain cells?"

"I'll take it that you're in, then," Ichijou replied, ignoring the question.

"Hell yes."

Ichijou smiled, then looked at the four men who would be the primary fighting force of the group, if they agreed. As if sensing Ichijou's eyes on him (and who knew if he wasn't?), Godai looked up. He grinned and gave Ichijou a thumbs-up. Ichijou raised both eyebrows, slightly surprised, and made a small encompassing gesture with one hand. All four of them? Godai's grin grew fractionally and he nodded. Ichijou breathed out something between a sigh of relief and an amazed laugh.

Harebrained though his idea might be... at least it had a chance of working.

* * *

_Author's Notes_: If you've made it all the way to this point, I'm impressed! Either you like Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Agito as much as I did, or you really like my writing. Hopefully both? 

I watched Kuuga first and it's my favorite of the two, though I admit that Agito is better written. What I wanted to explore in this was the end of Kuuga (very much left open) and how it tied in to Agito, since the two of them are canonically the same universe. Why wasn't Ichijou ever seen in Agito, helping deal with the Unknown? I mean, it's not like he had any type of _experience_ with that kind of thing. What happened when Godai got back and found out anything like that had been happening? How do the Grongi tie in to the Beast Lords? And, because if I don't see the body I don't trust someone is actually dead, what happened to Ra'Baruba'De?

After going through Kuuga a few times, I concluded that Ichijou is probably canonically gay (via the running motif of people asking him why he doesn't have a girlfriend) and Godai, like his actor, bisexual. Given the amount of doujinshi for the pairing, I don't think I'm the only one with this belief! I also think neither of them can change who they are--Ichijou will always be a police officer, and Godai will always be a free spirit--but that they understand and respect one another well enough that their partnership will always work. That said, the corporate Japanese attitude toward homosexuality is such that "plausible deniability" is a keyword in their relationship. Thus an apartment with two bedrooms... and futons that get put away when they're not being used, as opposed to a Western bed which is a piece of furniture that's always sitting out. There is, in fact, a side story which details what happens _after_ chapter 14, but I have not uploaded it here due to restrictions. If you want to read it (beware: it _is_ graphic), it can be found at my own website.

The Agito crossover came in late to this story, but I hope it tied together well enough the premise of those with the ability to become "agito" and what the Grongi were, and what Godai is. I also hope it tied in together well enough where Shouichi got the _money_ to open his own restaurant! I'm hoping to continue this story further in a sequel or two, if the muses will cooperate, and maybe a crossover with my other tokusatsu series love, Ultraman Moebius... but we shall see. In any case, thank you for reading!


End file.
